#from a facebook post of weird or unsettling products

[bogleech]

[beca-mitchell]

i took your matches before fire could catch me (1/1)

Summary: Beca and Chloe will always cross paths—the first year after the USO tour. Beca-centric. Rated M for like...one huge smut scene in the second half.

Word count: 8325

A/N: Title from Taylor Swift’s “Dear John”. This was a very different story when I first started working on it at the beginning of this year. I'm not sure I like where it ended up going, but I wanted to share it anyway. 

All mistakes are mine.

Happy NYE!

Read below or on AO3.

January

The first time they see each other again, Chloe is in Los Angeles for a weekend and Beca had agreed to meet for coffee.

The first few months after the USO tour, they had been busy with moving, with starting school, with starting a new album, so it had been easier to avoid each other.

But Beca misses Chloe and she knows Chloe feels some of the same emptiness or she wouldn’t have agreed to meet Beca for coffee. Or so Beca tells herself.

It had been awkward at the beginning, but Beca found herself becoming more comfortable as the hours passed and before she knew it, she was standing quickly as Chloe gathered her bag and phone, looking ready to leave.

Chloe smiles at Beca then. It is not quite forced, but Beca sees some strain in it—some desperation. “I hope we stay friends,” she says softly. Beca feels sick and her throat tightens around the emotions that well up inside her. And to make it worse, Chloe continues: “I care about you.”

Heat and moisture spike alarmingly quick beneath Beca’s eyelids. “Friends,” she repeats, tasting the word on her tongue.

(Friends, like how she and Chloe had started; friends, like how they had been just before the depth of their feelings for each other slipped into something more; friends, like they had been when Beca had grabbed Chloe’s jacket and kissed her with everything she had.)

“Yeah, obviously,” Beca says quickly when she realizes Chloe is still staring at her. “Of course. Why couldn’t we be? Friends, I mean. We were before. We still are.”

It is uncommonly cool in Los Angeles, even for January standards, so Beca attributes the shiver that rushes through her body when Chloe’s hand brushes her own to the weather and nothing more.

 — — — — — — — — — — 

(So they should probably talk about that kiss. The kiss that shouldn’t have happened, but Beca, in a fit of possession and jealousy upon seeing Chicago smiling at Chloe, had grabbed Chloe’s jacket and pulled her in for a kiss.

The shock in Chloe’s eyes had been reflected in Beca’s, but neither of them knew what else to do or say.

Not many more words were exchanged, even when Beca had led Chloe back up to her hotel room and the door had clicked shut behind them.)

 — — — — — — — — — —

February

Beca isn't a jealous person. Not at all. Not one bit.

Besides, she really shouldn't be, she tells herself derisively. They were never really friends, even when they technically were. Even when they were co-captains. Even when they shared a house for three years. There was always some complicated underlying attraction to each other and the pressure to perform and put on a show—both in their personal lives and on stage—which translated into a consistently-strained relationship. 

And God, it’s Valentine’s Day for fuck’s sake. Beca hadn’t been expecting to see Chloe in Los Angeles of all places, considering how hard it seemed for Chloe to have made the trip in the past few weeks whenever Beca had suggested a visit.

Beca attempts to let some bitterness seep out of her.

Chloe looks...beautiful. Stunning. Radiant. All the things Beca loves about Chloe shine through tonight. Beca spots her nearly immediately when she walks in and tunes out of the company she held within her perch in the VIP booth. Chloe is wearing her favourite ripped jeans and a pretty white top that just screams for something to be spilt on it. And yet, she dances without a care in the world. Her right palm is open, dying to be held. Her left hand clutches a wine glass, liquid precariously licking up the edges. Wine, of all things, in an upscale club in downtown Los Angeles.

Chloe spots her fairly quickly. The surprise in her eyes must be reflected in Beca’s own, but Beca makes no move to get out of her booth for the time being. It’s then that she notices Chloe can’t stop staring at her. It is only a product of the way Beca can’t keep her eyes off Chloe, but the way Chloe’s piercing blue gaze always seems to meet her gaze in return indicates that it’s a mutual sensation.

Finally, it is Chloe who musters up the courage to say hello first. Soft and quiet, unexpectedly appearing by Beca’s shoulder as she stands by the bar, finally escaping the sanctuary of her cordoned-off area.

“Hey,” Chloe’s voice sounds excitedly near her ear. "Beca, hi!"

Beca startles, nearly dropping her drink. “Chloe. Hey.”

“Letting loose tonight?”

Beca laughs, short and mildly acerbic. It is both comforting and unsettling how easy it is to fall into old habits with Chloe—how easy it is to want to open up to Chloe and trust her and love her all at once. “No,” she responds. “Just kind of scoping out the venue.” She takes a quick gulp of her drink for courage. “Are you here alone? Why are you here?”

“There was a conference in town,” Chloe explains, quicker than Beca expects. “A bunch of us took the night off.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Beca says. Or at least, she tries to say because she is cut off by an excited voice calling Chloe’s name and a large, male body appearing by her side. Beca swallows and tries to look anywhere else but the way his hand curls around Chloe’s hip with familiarity.

“Beca,” Chloe says questioningly when she notices that Beca is trying to inch away.

“It was nice to see you, Chloe.” I’m so glad we’re friends , Beca adds as an afterthought in her mind. She swallows back the sharp taste of her drink and looks instead for the closest pair of interested eyes.

“Hey, wait a second,” Chloe calls and before Beca realizes what is happening and before she can really dwell on anybody, Chloe’s hand is wrapping gently around her wrist. “Can we talk?”

“We’re talking now.”

Chloe scowls and shoots a glance over her shoulder at Nondescript Jock #5 before she is pushing Beca towards the women’s bathroom. 

“What are you doing?” Beca demands.

“Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?”

Chloe frowns. “Extra Beca-like.”

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Of course you don’t—you never do, do you?”

“I really don’t know what that means.”

They’re breathing heavily, both of them standing toe to toe. Around them, the bass pounds and the percussion line is strong, but Beca only feels the pounding of her own heart. This feels too raw—too much like how they had separated after Europe, only this is just a continuation of that ugliness.

(“So you’re just walking away. Again.”

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Chloe.”

“I’m not the one being difficult. You’re the one who’s afraid.” )

She hates how much she wants to kiss Chloe.

Beca sighs, some of the fight leaving her. “I just wasn’t expecting to see you. Here. When you’re supposed to be in Philadelphia.” 

“I honestly wasn’t expecting to see you here either. I'm not trying to...” Chloe's mouth twists unhappily. "Not trying to stalk you or anything. I'm just happy we ran into each other because we need to—"

“—maybe we should just pretend we never saw each other.”

Hurt flashes across Chloe’s eyes.

“Beca, wait—”

 — — — — — — — — — —

March

i didn't mean it, i'm sorry, Beca writes and rewrites in her phone. Over and over. It's like a ritual.

Nothing really works anymore.

When Beca falls asleep, it’s the same dream, the one she had almost every night for months after she moved to L.A.. Chloe is waiting for her when she gets in the door.

She smiles.

She kisses Beca.

She says, “Welcome home.”

Beca shakes off the fantasy, anger and hurt coursing through her. Screw you, Mitchell.

They haven’t really spoken for weeks. Beca is more comfortable at this distance, content on muting Chloe’s social media profiles and pretending like Chloe isn’t totally seeing that guy that she claims to not be seeing.

And the thing is, there isn't really a reason for Chloe to lie to her (even if Beca hasn't really given any concrete reason for Chloe to stay), but the sting of seeing Chloe flirt with Chicago incessantly is still sharp in Beca's memory, so she does the completely grown-up thing and rage-likes a bunch of Chloe’s Instagram and Facebook posts and sends petty emoji-reactions to some of Chloe’s Instagram stories. She hates the flash of vindication that rushes through her when Chloe texts her not too long after.

Hey, how are you?

It’s what she wanted, but she feels gross and petty and not at all like the adult her legal documents claim she is. Beca groans at the still unanswered text message. It’s dumb how jealous she is—how upset she is over something that might or might not be true. She’s trying her best to move on and to stay friends with Chloe because it’s what Chloe wanted .

It’s what they both wanted.

Before Beca has a chance to say anything, bubbles appear again, indicating that Chloe is typing.

i’m sorry if things are weird, the text reads. is everything okay with us?

Then, beca, please

Beca slowly blinks at the series of words. She feels nothing but tiredness within her. Her eyes are dry. 

She falls asleep with her phone in her hand.

— — — — — — — — — —

Aubrey is an unexpected confidante. It does feel a little self-sabotaging considering Aubrey’s relationship with Chloe.

“For what it’s worth, Chloe has told me some things,” Aubrey says carefully. “So I’m not completely in the dark, even if it surprises me that you’re calling me at all.”

“I think that we can be friends,” Beca replies. “We just need some time. Everything is too raw right now.”

Aubrey sighs. “You’re both fools.”

“It’s just...hard to get over her,” Beca admits.

“Why do you have to do that at all?”

The truth is, she doesn't. She's just so used to running—all her life, she only ever ran. Only a select handful of people were willing to give chase.

— — — — — — — — — —

She gives it another week—just a few more days to gather her wits.

Chloe sounds so relieved to hear her voice. It makes Beca feel all kinds of horrible, but Chloe never dwells on that.

And like her body is enjoying playing cruel tricks on her, she dreams of Chloe that night—dreams and remembers what it had been like to hold Chloe close, to kiss her that fateful night before her mind and her heart decided to do the stupid thing and fall in love.

(But that happened long ago, nothing Beca could really do about it now.)

 — — — — — — — — — —

April

Being in frequent contact with Chloe again means that Beca knows she’s not really dating anybody even if there is some guy who hangs around her a lot. It’s “super casual” (Chloe’s words) but apparently, he’s a “complete buffoon” (Aubrey’s words), so Beca isn’t quite sure whether she ought to be more supportive or discouraging. In the same vein, through similar channels, Beca knows when the guy isn't really in the picture anymore and she hates how easy it is for her to breathe again.

But Chloe seems happy in general. And coming to terms with the fact that she will always have some unresolved feelings for Chloe Beale...it’s kind of a difficult predicament to be in.

It's not that Beca hasn't been casually seeing people too—she's been on a few dates and only one real hook-up in the past few months, but she hadn't felt much for that person. For any of them really. And she hadn't told Chloe about them, only Amy in passing. Not even Aubrey whom she knows would just pass it on to Chloe.

A part of her almost wants to let Chloe know that she's happy to move on, but it was never really communicated between them that there was anything really to hold on to—at least, not verbally, Beca tells herself.

Beca is just so used to people leaving, it's almost easier to let people realize that she's not worth the trouble than to have them realize it when she's grown too attached. It's fucking depressing, in all honesty, but Beca hates the thought of being left behind. She hates distance and pining and all those things attached to relationships that never end up working out.

Like her parents.

She clenches her fist and attempts to refocus on the track she's meant to be listening to. It's not much of a lead single if it sucks.

"Well?" Jason, her favorite sound engineer asks. "Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?"

Beca glances down at her phone, seeing that a new notification from Chloe is waiting for her.

She forces her thoughts away and shoves her phone into her bag. "Again," she requests. "Play it back."

 — — — — — — — — — —

Thought of you today, she writes to Chloe later. This new artist on my label wouldn't shut up about acapella. really took me back. 

Chloe's reply is quick. i can be pretty unforgettable like that.

Beca can just see the smile on her face.

 — — — — — — — — — —

May

“Are we okay?” Chloe asks.

Phone calls are more regular now. Hearing Chloe's voice is less painful, but it only makes Beca fall for Chloe more with each interaction.

Beca heaves a sigh. “We are,” she answers honestly. “I promise, Chlo.” 

"Well, then tell me about your day."

"Tell me about yours," Beca challenges.

And just like that, they're okay again.

It's not the easiest, talking to Chloe like everything's okay, but relearning how to be Chloe's friend above all is Beca's priority and she finds that being in love with Chloe and being her friend don't necessarily have to be at odds with each other.

"I'm happy for you," Beca tells her when Chloe finishes a story. She means it.

 — — — — — — — — — —

June

It is amidst a small rant about koalas that Chloe casually drops her birthday plans over the phone to Beca.

“You’re throwing a party?” 

“A gathering,” Chloe explains. “For my birthday.”

“So a party.”

“Beca,” Chloe whines.

“Chloe, that’s-” great, wonderful, exciting .

“I was hoping you’d come,” Chloe says before Beca can say anything else like she’s afraid Beca will decline pre-emptively. It’s almost frightening how well Chloe knows Beca, but Beca is a little hurt that Chloe immediately would have jumped to that conclusion. 

“Chloe.”

“It would mean a lot to me if you were there,” Chloe continues. Her voice is strained, but soft around the edges.

“Of course I’ll come,” Beca says with a small smile, even if Chloe can’t see it. “Where will it be?”

Chloe clears her throat. “New York. Because it’s easier for me and the girls are pretty close by. And Amy already offered her space.”

Beca tries not to think about what happened the last time she and Chloe were in New York. “That sounds nice.” She hates how it’s not a complete lie. “Send me the details.”

Chloe makes some kind of excited squealing sound that nearly deafens Beca, but she can't help but smile.

 — — — — — — — — — —

Her hands are pushed against Chloe’s chest, desperate to hold onto something—similar to how she had kissed Chloe in France. Chloe’s arms are around Beca’s waist and she thinks maybe Chloe has picked her up off the floor, just slightly, but Beca cannot feel much else than the sensation of Chloe’s lips moving against hers and how tightly she is pressed against Chloe's body.

But that is only for a moment. Hands start pulling at Beca’s shirt and suddenly Chloe’s fingers are tracing the skin of her lower back. She whimpers against Chloe’s mouth.

They were supposed to be cleaning up.

This feeling is painfully familiar: Chloe’s kisses send surges of electricity and passion through Beca’s whole body.

It is as if every interaction they’ve had the past year has been leading to this. This—this is everything and Beca feels as if every fragmented piece of her being can finally relax; like every piece of her soul is where it’s meant to be. 

“Beca,” Chloe breathes out. She is still kissing her, so it suddenly tastes like tears between their lips and Beca’s not sure which one of them has started to cry, but she can’t stop kissing, can’t stop pulling Chloe closer, always closer.

"I don't know how to be without you," Chloe whispers. "Stop pushing me away." That alone causes a surge of emotion to rise up in Beca's chest and she pushes forward again, this time almost capturing Chloe's mouth, unable to resist even if they're both somehow still crying amidst a small pile of solo cups and garbage bags. 

"We're drunk," Beca whispers back. They're not.

"We're not," Chloe murmurs, but she steps back anyway, respectful of Beca's space.

It is when Chloe turns back around, clearly intent on finishing their task that Beca grabs her wrist and pulls her, reminiscent of how Chloe had pulled her all those years ago, into her orbit; how Chloe had pulled her all those months ago into the bathroom into the club. 

Chloe's mouth is opening against her own before Beca realizes what she's doing, but she is too powerless to resist.

"I'll stop if you want to stop," Chloe murmurs, her hands already dipping beneath the waistband of Beca's pants. 

"We should stop," Beca admits with a broken tone.

 — — — — — — — — — —

Chloe has to catch a fairly early train back to Philadelphia, so Beca feigns sleep for a bit, even though she knows it is a fruitless attempt at avoidance. Still, they spent the night together—totally innocent—and Beca didn't combust on the spot, so she considers that a success.

"You're not allowed to avoid me," Chloe whispers, pressing a kiss to Beca's forehead. "I'm calling you the moment I reach my dorm." 

 — — — — — — — — — —

July

Fourth of July in New York—it is Aubrey’s bright idea and Amy willingly hosts. She somehow now owns two apartments in a nice walk-up. Beca is only mildly envious.

She isn’t really expecting Chloe to gravitate right towards her, but she has been thinking of that kiss (and almost-something-more) at Chloe’s birthday party for the past month . And she’s sure Chloe has as well if the furtive glances she continues to shoot towards Beca are any indication.

(Their phone conversations have been strained, but Chloe is an attentive friend and cares about Beca's wellbeing above all, so she never pushes—has never pushed since they last had a hard conversation after the tour.)

But still, neither makes a move. Beca can see Aubrey glaring at her from across the room.

It isn’t that she and Chloe have been totally distant from each other. Their texts have become more frequent and increasingly flirty in ways that Beca had missed. After the USO tour, she wasn’t sure she’d ever interact like that with Chloe again.

But their lives have kind of evened out. Chloe is pretty much done with the first year of veterinary school and Beca’s almost done with her album. It’s weird to see her face on magazine covers and to have to engage in interviews, but it’s pretty worthwhile having Chloe send her excited text messages and photos of magazines whenever she spots Beca’s face.

The miss yous and heart emojis are a nice touch.

Beca nearly drops her phone when she hears the unmistakable clang of somebody climbing down the fire-escape steps. Glancing up, she catches the barest hint of familiar red hair and torn jeans.

Briefly, Beca wonders who she pissed off in a past life.

“There you are,” Chloe says brightly, once her feet touch the ground. She sways a little and Beca immediately stands to help her right herself, lest she topple right over the edge of the railing. Chloe heaves a breath and smiles gratefully at Beca.

Beca frowns, taking in the flush on Chloe’s face and the way her eyes shine brightly.

“Can you just...be careful? What if you hurt yourself?” Beca asks before she can stop herself. She sighs, running her hand over her face as Chloe makes herself comfortable. 

“I was looking for you,” Chloe replies, a little petulantly. She pushes her forehead against Beca’s shoulder in an attempt to nudge her. The touch alone makes Beca nearly recoil completely. “Why have you been avoiding me?” Chloe continues, voice muffled against Beca’s jacket. Whether she means over the past few hours or over the past four weeks, she doesn’t clarify, so Beca doesn’t offer a response.

Beca wants to laugh, however. Her brain isn’t working quite at full speed at the moment, because of the double hit of intoxication - both alcohol and Chloe Beale have similar effects on her. Willing herself not to snap at Chloe, she inhales sharply, trying to ignore the way Chloe’s breath feels against her neck. How Chloe’s breath smells a little like her favourite red wine. 

Speaking of–

Beca glances at the wine bottle in Chloe’s hand. “You swiped that from the party?”

Chloe seems to brighten upon noticing that Beca is engaging with her in conversation. “Yeah! Want some?”

It is somehow so familiar and so devastatingly Chloe that Beca’s chest aches for a few moments as she takes in the graceful tilt of Chloe’s neck and the high flush on her cheeks.

The attraction reverberates through Beca like a persistent ache.

She isn’t sure what she is meant to say to Chloe. Not when all this air hangs in between them. The air is thick, rife with all the things that remain unspoken.

This uncharted territory is anxiety-inducing for Beca – perhaps for them both. Chloe for all her confidence and charm is surprisingly shy and insecure – a fact Beca came to know with time during their romance and even further back, their friendship. So now, Beca is keenly aware of how Chloe’s foot taps out a nervous little rhythm from where she sits beside Beca, both of them leaning back as comfortably as they can.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Chloe asks again, softer and less accusatory. “And not just now . Since—” her voice wavers. “Since Europe. The tour. Since my birthday. Since always.”

“Chloe,” Beca says, sharper than she originally intends. She leans back, resting her head against brick. Good, she thinks, hoping against hope that her brain connects with her mouth and leaves her heart out of the equation. Beca takes the chance to look at Chloe then, wondering if there are parts of Chloe that she doesn’t know—if there are things that Chloe holds close to herself, like secrets that Beca will never get the chance to know.

Chloe looks like she might say something, so Beca holds her breath, waiting for the onslaught of ash and tainted air. Instead, Chloe’s brow furrows and she takes another swig of wine straight from the bottle—a long one—before she offers the bottle to Beca, eyebrow raised expectantly.

Beca accepts.

 — — — — — — — — — —

It doesn’t take long at all. Chloe’s is hot against her neck, from where Chloe has turned her face and her lips brush ever so slightly against Beca’s skin. July in New York means the weather is hot, but that is nothing compared to the heat that spreads from the wet, open-mouthed kiss Chloe places against Beca’s neck.

Beca turns more fully to face Chloe—to question her, really—but she finds her own body automatically reacting to Chloe’s proximity. Her hands are cupping Chloe’s cheeks before she realizes what is happening.

“Please,” Chloe murmurs against her mouth.

Beca was always rotten at saying no to Chloe.

And like clockwork, Beca’s heart pounds erratically when Chloe’s eyes fix on her—when Chloe locks her gaze on Beca with intent and purpose.

“Fuck it,” Beca mumbles.

 — — — — — — — — — —

Beca thinks she whispers “I love you” into Chloe’s ear.

She thinks it might be between orgasms - between their attempt to move to the bed and Chloe shoving her against the door of Amy's guest bedroom. Together, they maneuvered past countless bodies, ignoring anybody who tried to speak to them. Give me this one night, Beca thinks desperately.

She feels it so deeply and knows it to be so true and honest - the fact that she loves Chloe Beale with everything in her even if the way they’re fucking each other might kill them both.

She loves Chloe and she can’t hide it because it hurts too much. She never should have tried to hide it.

All at once, memories from the year before come crashing back, slamming down walls Beca thought she fortified.

 — — — — — — — — — —

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?” Beca asks. Demands. She feels hot and angry and upset all at once, watching Chloe make her way slowly across the room. Away from her. Defensiveness is her go-to in moments like this because it feels like too much at once.

At that, Chloe turns around, her own eyes alight with something almost unrecognizable. “Do you know how long I wanted this from you, Beca? How long I waited and waited until it—”

Beca’s heart pounds. “Until what,” she repeats, a little hollowly. “You waited until the last possible second?”

“Ask me to stay,” Chloe says instead. “Tell me you want me to stay and you want me. That you’ll still want me while you’re in L.A. and I’m holed up in Philly. I’ll stay with you. Wherever you go.” 

“You can’t stay,” Beca says weakly even though what Chloe asks of her isn't completely off-base. “Chloe, what the fu—Chlo,” she tries desperately. “I would never ask you to stay. I would never stop you from…” she gestures vaguely. “Vet school,” she says half-heartedly.

“That’s crap and you know it. Tell me to stay.”

She doesn't. She can't.

 — — — — — — — — — —

She doesn't tell Chloe to stay, but it isn't her fault, not entirely. It's kind of hard with Aubrey banging on the door and demanding that they make themselves available for fireworks.

Beca catches a hint of a smile on Chloe's face.

(It ends up being the inspiration she needs to really finish up her album. She doesn't want to dwell on the past.)

 — — — — — — — — — —

August

It’s Amy’s birthday (supposedly), so Beca can’t really find an excuse not to come. She’s trying to be a better friend and all.

And Chloe is Chloe, so she’s one of the first people to hit “attending”.

It is inevitable that their paths would cross again, sharing the same friend group. It takes everything in Beca to muster up the willpower to drag herself out of her temporary New York apartment—her new summer digs and all—and over to Amy’s apartment, which happens to be in the same building. Walking up a couple flights of stairs has never been a more nerve-wracking activity.

Beca immediately makes her way over to the laptop in the corner, taking in the songs Amy has lined up on her playlist. She fiddles with the order a little, glancing up a few times to take stock of the room.

“She’s not here yet,” comes Amy’s clear voice.

Beca jumps, nearly knocking the laptop clean off the shelf. “Amy,” she greets. “I was uh…looking for you. Happy birthday!” she exclaims, injecting real cheer in her voice before pulling Amy in for a hug.

“Thank you,” Amy replies brightly, though her tone does nothing to belie the suspicion. Beca tries to ignore the suspicion in Amy’s eyes. Most of the Bellas know that Beca and Chloe had a falling out, but they don’t know the extent, which, well…Beca supposes that’s the whole point of a secret fling.

Beca swallows and steadies herself before she manages to lift her eyes to look at Amy once more. “Drinks?” she requests finally, hoping the rasp in her voice stays out.

“Sure, right this way, my little DJ.” Amy wraps a firm arm around her and suddenly Beca is being very nearly hoisted through the crowd. “You got the playlist I sent you right?”

“Yes, I’m confused as to why you sent to me though.”

“Aren’t you DJ-ing my party?” Amy asks, mild confusion coloring her tone.

“I guess I am now,” Beca says after a moment. She’s not exactly going to pass up the opportunity to drink in the corner while staring at a long list of music and shuffling songs out of order.

“Not too famous yet, huh?” Amy jokes.

“Nope,” Beca says quickly, refocusing on Amy’s laptop.

Especially when the alternative is to stare at a certain somebody from across the room with incomparable longing.

 — — — — — — — — — —

Chloe’s eyes meet hers from across the room and like a sharp bolt of lightning, Beca finds herself as stiff as a board because Chloe still has that effect on her. Especially with the sharp, vivid memory of Chloe’s lips against her own; Chloe’s hands on her body. Her body tenses even more when she realizes Chloe is making her way towards her. Beca attempts to pretend as if she hadn’t been staring at Chloe for the better part of the evening.

Beca has zero idea how Chloe plans to manage their newfound friendship now with all their history between them. Even now, with Chloe looking at her with bright blue eyes—open and filled with emotion—Beca can’t help but have very…decidedly not friendly thoughts about the woman standing in front of her. Philadelphia has evidently been kind to Chloe, kinder than Chloe’s social media posts have let on. Her hair is longer and her cheeks are just a bit rosier, but eyes are the brightest Beca has ever seen.

So she makes her way out onto the fire escape and climbs down to her own apartment, breathing a sigh of relief at the instant solitude she feels.

“Hi,” Chloe greets from above, having followed Beca like she anticipated.

Beca glances up quickly. "Hey," she replies, willing her racing heart to calm down. Chloe makes quick work of the steps and is soon standing next to Beca.

Chloe looks like she is about to step forward into Beca’s space for a quick moment—a quick moment like so many before—and Beca’s body just reacts . Her skin starts to tingle, her lips part and her mouth dries, and every single body seems to light aflame. Her hands twitch by her sides because every last instinct wants her to move forward; wants her to push into Chloe’s body; wants her to put their lips together.

It feels like a craving at least—a desperate need to fill something that has remained empty for too long. Her emotional reserves are plentiful and her body aches to remind both herself and Chloe of what they had.

(One month apart is entirely too long.)

From the way Chloe continues to gaze at her as the silence expands between them, Beca thinks maybe kissing her wouldn’t be a completely horrible idea.

The clang of the bottle against the fire escape startles Beca but before she can say anything or ask Chloe anything, Chloe all but has her pressed against the hard brick exterior of the building and her lips are sliding sloppily against Beca’s like the last few weeks never happened—like they spent no time apart at all. 

Beca’s hands automatically grip Chloe’s hips as best as she can, twisting her body to face Chloe more fully. Chloe hums quietly into their kiss - a sound Beca has missed so terribly. It sends both a jolt of sadness and arousal through Beca, forcing her to tighten her grip in the fabric of Chloe’s shirt. 

A part of her desperately believes they should stop—that this is wholly inappropriate considering the delicate balance of emotions they’ve struck up between them since that last night in France. Since that last night in June. All the months before.

(But in France, that first time will always remain a pivotal moment—Beca slides her hand down Chloe’s side reverently, wonder in her eyes. She memorizes and memorizes, in awe of each touch and each sound. Everything is new and passionate, burning brightly like the embers of what could be a new love.

And she knows Chloe feels the same.) 

But Beca craves this from Chloe - the affection, the touch - the passion.

Leaning further into the kiss, Beca can taste the alcohol on Chloe’s tongue - a hint of tequila and lime, red wine, and perhaps more. Beca wonders what her own tongue tastes like - wonders if Chloe likes the way she tastes still.

Assaulted by the myriad of thoughts that threaten to overtake her, Beca is overwhelmed simultaneously by Chloe’s tongue and her hands roaming freely across Beca’s body. 

It’s quick, the way Chloe’s fingers deftly unbutton Beca’s jeans. Beca is suddenly conscious with the rough brick behind her head.

“Should we…” Beca clears her throat and tries to focus because Chloe’s lips are molten against her skin. 

“Should we…” Chloe echoes softly, tilting her head back up to press her nose against Beca’s jaw. “I want you,” she whispers, reassurance in her voice, like she worried briefly that Beca was concerned at all about whether Chloe still desired her. 

...she had been a little concerned, maybe.

Beca can only nod against the onslaught of feelings and sensation, opting to chase Chloe’s mouth with her own. She soaks through her underwear at the feeling of Chloe’s fingers skimming along the skin of her hip. 

Chloe touches her surely and boldly, even though Beca thinks they absolutely shouldn’t be doing this in full view of a public street. Yet, for once, the streets are quiet and only the sounds of Amy’s party echo from above them. Everybody is involved in their own lives—their their own parties. Nobody is looking up. All Beca knows—all she can feel is the sure, steady glide of Chloe’s fingers against the front of her underwear. She barely resists from taking Chloe’s hand and shoving it straight into her underwear, but even if she wanted to do so, her body is rendered immobile for the time being. 

Chloe has that effect on her: the effect of being rendered completely helpless because all she wants to do is give herself to Chloe over and over again, even if her heart cries out for some relief.

Beca thinks she curses or at least that something escapes her, but Chloe’s fingers are persistently rubbing at her clit through her underwear and her mouth is latched onto Beca’s jaw. 

It’s hard to think, not while Chloe’s fingers hold no rhythm of their own. They bump and push at Beca’s clit in time with the hot pulse between her legs – like Chloe knows enough about Beca’s body to intuitively feel out how close Beca is to her orgasm already.

(Kissing Chloe always was enough to bring her simultaneous ecstasy and joy.)

Chloe’s breath catches occasionally, when her fingers slip down – down to slowly rub and drag Beca’s ruined underwear between her distinctly swollen folds. Her hips buck up and she briefly wonders what would happen if they happened to fall to their death.

She can’t process much else because she’s clamping her own hand between her legs, stilling Chloe’s hand. She just needs Chloe to stay – to stop for a moment because it feels too good and she wants it to last –

Beca’s not sure how long the ache between her legs lasts, but before long she’s coming apart in Chloe’s arms, eyes nearly crossing from the white-hot pleasure that rushes through her. Her clit throbs and licks against the fabric of her now embarrassingly damp underwear.

“I— fuck ,” she breathes out, trying to get something articulate to leave her lips, but Chloe’s hand, still warm and wet, finds its way to her jaw and grips it tightly enough that Beca’s eyes fly open, only to see the fresh desire in Chloe’s eyes. 

“I want you,” Chloe mumbles again, leaning in to kiss Beca so thoroughly and steadily that Beca almost forgets they’re drunk. Almost forgets that they’re on the fire escape of her shoddy rented New York apartment because she lives there (because she had jumped at the chance to live there because it brought her thousands of miles closer to Chloe Beale) with her pants partway down her thighs. Almost forgets how uncomfortably wet her underwear is. She jolts, her thigh brushing against the cold leather of couch. “So much,” Chloe continues, voice strained and desperate.

“I want you, too,” Beca chokes out, between kisses. Chloe’s death grip on her jaw loosens and they’re collapsing back into each other, a collision of alcohol-warmed bodies, fuelled by the pain of missing each other to the point of devastating heartbreak.

It’s not a lie. She wants Chloe to the point of frustration. Frustration with herself, frustration with everything about their situation.

And yet, she can’t help herself from sinking into Chloe’s kiss, her familiar touch, her familiar nips and bites across her skin.

“In-inside,” Beca manages to say between Chloe’s increasingly frenzied kisses. “We should go-“ She barely manages to halt Chloe’s hand from sliding back between her legs. Instead, she intertwines their fingers, tries to slow down. “We should go inside,” she manages to clarify. 

Chloe pants out against her mouth and nods so slightly that Beca almost misses it. She only feels the barest brush of Chloe’s lips against her own - the marker of Chloe’s nod - before she’s drunkenly pulling Chloe inside the room. Chloe has the sense of mind to grab the mostly empty wine bottle. She drops it on one of Beca’s side tables and they barely make it over the couch before they’re a mess of limbs and badly-aimed kisses. Beca’s back hits the couch, but only barely and they’re both kind of collapsing onto the ground with soft thumps.

Beca fumbles with Chloe’s hair and clothes in a scramble to push up off the ground. “Bed,” she tries to say, but Chloe’s lips are forceful and passionate. Instead, Beca’s sure she only manages to make some kind of garbled moan because Chloe’s fingers are pinching insistently at her nipple and Chloe’s lips are latched onto her neck.

Before Beca can do much else, Chloe is pushing herself off Beca’s upper body, breathing heavily. Beca can make out the desire in Chloe’s eyes. She can also make out the smudge of Chloe’s lipstick and the swell of her lips. She opens her mouth to tell Chloe how pretty she is, but she halts, watching Chloe’s hands tremble as they pull her pretty blue shirt over her head. Beca swallows, leaning up on her elbow to watch Chloe’s progress. Chloe pulls her jeans down, lifting off Beca momentarily to do so. It’s less graceful than either of them anticipates because she very nearly rolls off Beca to do so, kicking at her legs in a desperate attempt to remove her clothing. 

Beca reaches (eagerly) for the elastic of Chloe’s underwear, desperate to see all of her again - desperate to relearn Chloe’s body. To her surprise, Chloe bats her hands away and moves to pull down Beca’s already unbuttoned pants all the way. Beca bites her lip and sits up further to help Chloe by pulling off her own t-shirt, tossing it somewhere behind her. She doesn’t remember taking off her jacket, but she’s sure she had it on earlier. Nothing matters, however, because Chloe is draping herself back over Beca’s body, tangling one hand firmly into Beca’s hair and letting the other grip Beca’s hip with almost bruising pressure. 

Beca wonders if there’s anything new about Chloe’s body – if there’s anything new about the curves and lines and everything in between – based on the time they’ve spent apart. 

Beca moans into the kiss, desperate to feel more of Chloe. She fumbles under Chloe’s bra, trying to find purchase on Chloe’s breasts, squeezing the flesh as best as she can. Chloe’s nipples are hard against her palm and she presses, almost giddy of the familiar feeling (and of the knowledge that she fully manages to incite this reaction in Chloe Beale, still. She craves the feeling of skin against skin, but before she can do anything (not that she could say anything with Chloe’s tongue in her mouth), Chloe is grabbing her wrists and unceremoniously shoving her arms above her head.

“Me first,” Chloe mumbles, eyes nearly crossing as she leans back down towards Beca’s face. Their eyes meet; their breaths intertwine.

Beca can only nod.

 — — — — — — — — — —

The rest of the night passes in a series of heated, passionate moments.

Chloe’s thumb is perfectly pressed against Beca’s clit through her underwear, while the rest of  her hand is splayed out against the front of the lace. Occasionally her nails scratch at the lace, but Beca can barely feel all of that compared to the sensation of how wet Chloe is against her thigh. Chloe bites her lip, grinding down hard against Beca’s thigh while also using her own thigh to press against Beca through her underwear. With her other hand holding Beca’s thigh up and helping her leg wrap around her hip, Beca can very nearly almost feel Chloe’s pussy grinding against hers, with each upwards brush.

“Please,” she chokes out. “Chlo-”

Chloe’s eyes flash and suddenly she disappears. Beca cries out at the loss and tries to sit up.

In her haze—her Chloe-induced haze—she briefly registers the loss of warmth, before her legs are being pushed apart and suddenly Chloe is staring back at her from between her legs. The sight makes Beca collapse back and she only just drapes her arm over her eyes when Chloe licks her right through the goddamned ruined lace. 

It’s a special brand of torture, feeling Chloe’s tongue nudge and prod at her through the lace. She’s soaking through the underwear anyway - she’s sure it clings to her like a second skin. The lace is rough against her – so rough and persistent. She swells with pleasure, trying to squirm up against Chloe’s mouth. Trying to get Chloe to slip beneath her underwear. 

She just wants Chloe’s tongue inside her - she just wants Chloe to fuck her like she did before, that night when everything screamed of potential and before Beca had been too scared and wasted it all away.

Instead, Chloe is sucking her clit through the lace, the duality of how wet the material feels and yet how distinct it feels makes Beca’s entire body buck up and into Chloe’s face again . Every sensation renews the sheer lust she feels, building and building until she can’t stand it any longer.  She immediately yanks on Chloe’s hair, unsure of when her hands even found their way into Chloe’s hair.

Chloe concedes and lifts herself back up. Her body covers Beca with heat and endlessly soft skin while Beca awaits the return of Chloe’s lips to her own.

When presented with Chloe’s mouth, she holds Chloe’s face close and licks her tongue into Chloe’s mouth as best as she can, tasting the bits of herself that she left behind.

In her haze – somewhere between alcohol and lust – she thinks she hears Chloe’s moan; she thinks she feels the way it reverberates through her body and settles somewhere at the back of her mind. She desperately tries to cling on to each memory as it passes through her with each swipe of Chloe’s tongue; with each harsh suck.

Then, a sigh against her inner thigh and Chloe's ministrations are slowing to stop. "I love you," she whispers, so softly that Beca nearly misses it. 

But then she can't do much else than gasp for breath and stare at the plain, white ceiling.

I love you, too.

— — — — — — — — — —

"Stay," Beca murmurs, pulling Chloe's arm as she moves to leave the warmth of her bed. "You can stay for one more night, right?"

Chloe pauses and turns, her eyes the softest Beca has ever seen them. "I can stay as long as you want me to."

Beca smiles, her vision blurry with unexpected tears. "I've only ever wanted you to stay with me. I was just stupid about it for too long."

"I can do that," Chloe promises. She cups Beca's cheek, but makes no move to wipe away her tears. "I'll do that for as long as you need."

And that means the world, for there was a time where Beca thought she had exhausted all of Chloe's time. But, as with most things, Beca learns how wrong she was.

 — — — — — — — — — —

September

Beca is mildly uncomfortable when she wakes up.

...For many reasons, though she assesses that the primary reason appears to be that she’s sleeping on a cheap mattress and her arm is trapped under Chloe’s body. Grimacing, she attempts to roll her shoulders a bit, but winces when that action causes a twinge of pain.

Twisting her head, she catches sight of a tangle of red curls and the smooth, gently freckled back she had come to know so intimately. 

Her heart thuds in her chest, as she twists her body in an attempt to gently extricate her arm from under Chloe’s side. Chloe is breathing steadily and slowly, an indication that she is still asleep. 

She wonders if Chloe dreams of her still, like Beca does; if Chloe dreams of all the things they could do in the future– 

(How close that all came to being could have done; how close that came to being would have done. )

Beca pauses in her maneuvering to reach out with her free hand to trace the gentle red lines across Chloe’s back - the remaining marks of Beca’s fingers scratching down the smooth expanse of skin the previous night. The echo of Chloe’s breath hot against her ear and the grip she had maintained on Beca’s thighs rise to the surface, but Beca tamps them down, almost lazily.

She just wants to be.

Sighing, Beca turns to cuddle into Chloe’s back fully, basking in the warmth she receives from how close she feels to Chloe at that moment. She tucks herself close, brings her arms up against the smooth skin of Chloe’s back. 

Warmth finally fills her chest.

 — — — — — — — — — —

When Beca wakes up again, her lips are pressed loosely to Chloe’s shoulder, both of them still in the same position, though this time Chloe has Beca’s hand in a death-grip and pressed tightly against her chest as she slumbers.

Tentatively, Beca curls her fingers, blinking awake when their fingers neatly intertwine, settling against each other neatly and perfectly.

Without thinking, she kisses a trail up Chloe’s shoulder and leans up so she can press a gentle kiss against Chloe’s neck, warm from the ray of sunshine that comes through Beca’s window. It must be mid-day or at least late morning.

Chloe’s body stiffens as she awakens, but Beca isn’t afraid. “Mm,” Chloe moans out. “It’s too early, baby. Go back to sleep and stay in bed with me.”

Beca smiles into the curve of Chloe’s shoulder. “Gladly.”

 — — — — — — — — — —

October

“Do we need to book a ticket for your girlfriend?” Theo asks her offhandedly while they’re planning her agenda for the next few months until the end of the year. 

Beca is startled. “Girlfriend,” she echoes.

“Yeah. Chloe, right? Red hair. Taller than you, but not by much.”

“Yeah, no—that’s her. It’s just.” A slow smile spreads across Beca’s face. “She is my girlfriend, huh?”

Theo doesn’t bother responding to that. “Okay so I’m just gonna set aside a ticket for her and she can call me to set up flight details if she wants. You can call me later.”

Beca hangs up with a smile on her face.

Chloe exists her ensuite bathroom, drying her hair. “Who was that?”

Beca stands, reaching out to take Chloe’s towel so she can dry her hair for her. “Just Theo being nosy and asking questions about my girlfriend.”

Chloe grins. "And who might that be?"

"Maybe the person who bought these ridiculous matching costumes for a party we really don't have to go to."

 — — — — — — — — — —

November

"My dad's like...super happy I'm dating you," Beca says, going for casual. "So would you like to spend Thanksgiving with my family this year?"

The way Chloe tears up and nods enthusiastically is anything but casual.

 — — — — — — — — — —

December

They’re snowed in, but Beca isn’t complaining.

“What if you’d met somebody last year?” Chloe asks. “And then we tried that whole being friends thing. Which totally didn’t work, by the way.” She kisses Beca’s neck. “You’re still one of my best friends though.”

"There was like one person," Beca murmurs. "But nothing."

Beca had thought about from time to time. There would be people who caught her eye during that period when she and Chloe weren’t really anything. Before they’d kissed again. She imagined having to tell Chloe she was seeing somebody, the same way Chloe had kind of told her about that kind-of-sort-of-not fling. She wondered what it would have felt like—to be able to have another option. “I guess you wouldn’t have been trying to kiss me all the time,” Beca sighs.

Chloe sighs as well, with some amount of exaggeration. “Bummer.”

“I'd feel bad for them, though,” Beca says, keeping a straight face.

Chloe looks up, alarmed. “Why?”

“Because they’d have to compete with you,” Beca says and she finally cracks a smile. But she isn't laughing or making light of the situation. Just amazed that she's there at all, with Chloe tucked into her side.

Chloe doesn’t reply, but she does gently tilt her head up and kiss Beca’s chin, before maneuvering ever so slightly so she can reach Beca’s lips.

It relaxes all the muscles in Beca’s body and she lets herself get pushed back into their pillows, the solid weight of Chloe’s body gently covering her own.

Beca relishes in the strong pull of Chloe’s fingers and the confidence of her lips as they work their way down Beca’s body with stark familiarity.

Their conversation is forgotten as together, they ring in the new year.

fin.

[bigskydreaming]

Tbh, another part of why I’m so vehemently anti-RPF is like.....one of the first things any legit agent or manager asks an actor when they sign them is if they’re willing to do nude scenes and/or sex scenes. And when there’s an actor whose work you follow cuz you think they’re hot and you notice they’ve never been in any kind of sex scene or even a shirtless scene, that’s not like...by accident, most of the time. 

Because a lot of actors aren’t comfortable with nude scenes. And it doesn’t have nearly as much to do with prudishness or religious reasons or any of that stuff as you might assume. I mean, I have done nude scenes. In some pretty big size productions as in with a full crew. And lemme tell you....they are NOT fun. Or sexy. Or hot. Like, even a little bit, lol.

Cuz like, its never just you and another actor in a bedroom. It’s you and another actor naked or close to naked.....in the middle of like.....forty fully dressed crewmen holding cameras and lighting and sound equipment and acting like you’re not just...naked in front of them, even though you and everyone else are actually super aware that yup, you definitely are. 

And there’s a million lights on you and set lights are HOT, they make you sweat like crazy, and so when you’re doing a lot of takes and getting sweaty from the lights you constantly have people running up to you between takes and like....toweling you off in a completely unsexy way, lol, and reapplying makeup and the whole time they’re not even talking to you but to each other, like you’re not even there, b/c they’re not trying to be rude but they’re in a hurry, they have to do this fast so there’s not really time to strike up a conversation with you while they do it. But its TOO weird to just be doing it in silence so they usually solve that awkwardness by being in the middle of a convo as they run up to you and your scene partner and just keep continuing it before running back.

And the whole time you’ve got a cranky, stressed and taking it out on everyone director yelling at you to basically...be more sexy, lol, with you having to do take after take after take and not even look just as into it as you did the take before, but dig deep and look even MORE into it. Because you wouldn’t still be shooting if you’d already done it right, you’re obvsly ‘not being sexy right’. And gotta say, lol, nothing makes it easier to feel and thus act sexy than an asshole you’d never sleep with in a million years yelling about how he’s not feeling like he wants to fuck you yet or like you want to fuck him yet. And he’s the audience, he says, he’s the people in the seats of the movie theater watching you pretend-fuck on screen, and so if he doesn’t feel like you wanna fuck him, then how do you expect they’re gonna be able to put themselves in the fantasy and feel like you’re talking to them, like you wanna fuck them? Ick.

So I mean....there’s actually a lot of reasons for actors to not want to do nude scenes, both men and women. Or for them to do one and then never do one again. And that’s not even getting into the after part of things, like....the weirdness of spending several more weeks working closely with several dozen people who have all seen you naked, up close and personal. Or the weirdness of knowing who-knows-how-many ppl out in the general public then have seen it too, fantasized about you, with you having no idea who any of them are, if you’d be like...comfortable with them having that level of intimacy with you if you did know who they are...*shrugs* Because there’s not really an easy way around the fact that someone seeing you naked IS a form of intimacy in our society. You’re exposed. You’re....all out there for them to critique or have opinions on or form fantasies about, with no way to reciprocate. And that’s a very weird feeling. That crosses well over into uncomfortable when you factor in that there’s no way to opt out of being seen like that by people you KNOW you wouldn’t want to share that level of intimacy with if it was just you and them.

Like, there’s one closeted actor I knew years ago who grew up in a small conservative town, and early on in his career he did a lot of sex-type scenes, like he was one of those actors who is pretty much always in a state of undress on every show he’s on, early on in their career. And he used to say how he never thought twice about it, thought he was totally fine with it....until he went back to his hometown for the holidays for the first time in years, and had all these old classmates and neighbors both his age and older women too, like actual friends of his parents or people who’d known him since he was a kid....and they were fawning over him while he was there and giggling about those scenes and how racy they were and blah blah...but the point was, when he came back to LA after the holidays, he just couldn’t do scenes like that anymore. 

Because, like he said, he’d never really thought of himself as someone who made the fact that he was gay a big part of his identity, but it was just too unsettling for him after that. Being aware that the very same people who were a huge part of why he was in the closet, because of all the shit they’d said when he was growing up about how gross and disgusting gay people and gay sex are...here they were, totally okay with and INTO simulated sex scenes that didn’t have an ounce of the intimacy he had in his actual sexual encounters with other guys. 

He was like “they’d all call me disgusting and tell me I was going to Hell if they found out what I do with boyfriends in my own home, but what I do on camera, surrounded by dozens of total strangers with a woman I only just met at our audition a week ago and have seen maybe twice since, like....that works for them?” And it just skeeved him out too much. He stopped auditioning for roles like that cold turkey, and I don’t think he’s actually ever done a nude scene since. He couldn’t get over knowing that the older women from his church who’d be the first to gossip about how sinful he was for having a boyfriend were instead gossiping on facebook about how hot he looked in this bedroom scene or whatever.

Anyway. Didn’t mean to go off on this tangent and didn’t realize that last post would bring this up, lmao. And tbh, like, I don’t ENJOY doing nude scenes, but I’ve never been bothered to the point of turning down a paying job. Like, it skeeves me out sometimes, stuff like I mentioned in that last post, coming face to face (so to speak) with the knowledge that someone I deeply dislike on a personal level has seen me that way and enjoyed it, but for me its a level of discomfort where I’m like, yeah, not ideal, but I can live with it. But for a lot of actors, it is a dealbreaker. 

And I feel this is something a lot of RPF-er’s don’t consider....like, with a lot of these celebrities, the way you’re talking about them, fantasizing about them, writing stories or sharing pictures about them, especially ones where there aren’t a lot of actual sexualized content available already for you to springboard off of, where you have to like...photoshop heads onto other bodies or make fanart from scratch.....they didn’t say they were cool with it. They didn’t give even the kinda tacit permission that comes from accepting a role where they willingly expose their entire body and self for anyone and everyone to see and to say or think whatever they want as a result. Like, someone accepting a job that casts them as the fantasy hero in a romance where they sweep their lover off their feet and gaze longingly into each other’s eyes and all that stuff....but with their clothes on....Its not exactly the same thing as voluntarily sexualizing themselves top to bottom, playing the part of an actively sexual being onscreen for you to then take in and absorb and do whatever you want with what they chose to put out there.

And thing is....this is still a form of consent, we’re talking about here. No, I’m not saying its the same kind as in a single person-to-person physical interaction. Violating someone’s consent so to speak, in this particular context, I’m not saying its interchangeable with someone being told no by a person and not stopping. I’m just saying....its not nothing either. You’re still taking away another human being’s right to decide whether or not they want you to have the level of intimacy that’s innately tied up in the viewing of a person in their most vulnerable state. Their right to decide whether they want you not just picturing them as a sexual fantasy, and in what ways. 

Because like....that’s the other thing about consent. It needs to be given for each individual interaction. It’s not a one-time issued all access pass. An actor consenting to be a part of your sexual fantasies in the role and form of a character from a movie where they have sex with another consenting adult.....is not a blank check saying hey, I’m also totally fine with you using my face and likeness and even name in your fantasies where you put me opposite a minor, or a homophobe, or an abuser. 

Like, just speaking for myself, I may be okay with however anyone chooses to view or think or talk about me based on the nude roles I’ve taken or in the context of them, even if it does make me kinda uncomfortable. But I very much would not the fuck be okay with someone sexualizing me opposite someone like, idk, Jared Leto, let’s say, someone that I fucking hate and would never in a million YEARS consent to being vulnerable, let alone intimate with, in any way, shape or form. 

I mean, lol, if you’ve been following me for long at all, think about what you know about me as a person, just in terms of like things I’m obviously passionate about, things I talk a lot about etc. Now keeping in mind what you know of me and my personality just as a person who exists beyond any particular fantasy someone might have after seeing me in a role, picture me as an actor. Say I someday ended up in a role in a shared universe franchise like Marvel or DC, where Jared Leto also played a role in that franchise, even if it wasn’t in the same movie, if I never actually consented to be in a movie starring alongside Jared Leto. But by virtue of the big sprawling franchise we’re both in and thus tangentially linked, there’s enough basis for someone who finds him hot and who also finds me hot to go, okay, I wanna ship them together, I want to craft my own sexual fantasy starring them both together, and maybe even write it out, share it online.

Now....knowing me even just on a ‘i follow this person on a social media platform’ level....do you think I’d be remotely comfortable with that? Sure, I’ll probably never find out, you could say, assuming you convince yourself I don’t know how to use google or never google myself or SHOULD never google myself, because....idg that logic tbh but whatever. But you still know. Isn’t it even just a little bit skeevy, building a sexy fantasy around two people when you know or are even just a little sure one of them would not the fuck consent to that?

Like, there’s no law against that, obviously. No one’s gonna come banging on your door and say you can’t do that, that you have Harmed Me in some material way and I’m gonna sue or press charges. But just purely from the standpoint of acknowledging that you may not know me at all, but you know that I exist somewhere on this planet as a living, breathing, thinking entity with my own agency and likes and dislikes....shouldn’t what I want or feel matter? Especially if I do happen to feel very strongly about this, to the point where I’ve taken actionable steps to NOT consent to be in any situation with someone like that where it could remotely be construed as sexual, or even like he’s someone who I could tolerate being around, like his very existence doesn’t gross me out given some of the stuff he’s done. Making deliberate, conscious choices to not take roles opposite him, stuff like that.

Now sure, you don’t know if this is the case, have no way of knowing this about any random actor, that they feel this way or would or would not have this or that opinion about the scenario you’re placing them in, if it were brought to their attention, if you had the opportunity to ask them face to face ‘hey would you be okay with this?’

But that’s the point. You don’t know. But at least maybe focus on actors in their ROLES that they chose to play, where they showed up to work and said okay, here I am to my job pretending to be this character who isn’t me, to bring them to life and make them real for audiences, make them someone they can imagine, or yes, fantasize about. Instead of just assuming for yourself that hey anything and everything is fair game because they took their shirt off in a show once and they’re an actor anyway so what does it matter, this is what they get paid for....

Well. No. Its not what we get paid for. We get paid for the job we sign up to do. That we CHOOSE to do. An actor gets paid to be fodder for sexual fantasies based around their role as a sexy spy in a thriller, maybe, but that’s not and really shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable with acting like they’re getting paid to be fodder for sexual fantasies with anyone and everything in every possible kinky scenario, consent not required, no age limit, anything goes.

I’m not saying its wrong to have sexual fantasies about an actor who’s lodged in your brain in a sexual context because yeah, they’ve done sex scenes before. I’m just saying....there’s a lot of angles that a lot of people don’t put any thought into at all before just doing whatever they want, and all these very important conversations about consent and sexual agency and all that.....they don’t stop being necessary just because they’ve crossed into territory where you don’t want to have these particular conversations, where there’s a status quo you’re comfortable with even if you think a status quo in another area of society needs to be challenged.

Anyway.

Oops, I thought I was done but I kept going. Why am I like this. Okay, now I’m done. Anyway. Just thoughts I have and thus shared, do with them as you will.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The Myspace-era bands keeping the internet's weirdest music genre alive

The internet can be a deeply unsettling place, especially when you stumble upon videos that you probably should've left alone. But, if you were like me in 2011, you sought out the weirdest of websites and the creepiest of pastas, then shared your intel with all your post-emo friends.

By 2016, I was surfing the internet for some quality spooky material during my college years when I stumbled across something called witch house.

SEE ALSO: Meet the man who makes music with vegetables

It was a musical genre most had pronounced dead — and yet was still surviving and thriving in the weirdest corners of the internet. Two major artists from the early days of witch house, known as White Ring and Ritualz, have been instrumental in helping keep the genre going.

"I really don't know if witch house was ever really alive honestly," Bryan Kurkimilis, one-third of White Ring admits. "It seems like it's always going to be in a perpetual adolescence when it came out 10 years ago, and it's kind of stuck there now."

Kurkimilis' White Ring started off back in 2006 as a duo featuring him and vocalist Kendra Malia. In 2011, the duo went on hiatus, and in 2016 Adina Viarengo joined the band to serve as the group's second vocalist. Now in 2018, with their debut album Gate of Grief finally complete, White Ring is back on track and very much determined to keep witch house relevant.

According to Vulture, witch house music was birthed during the late 2000s and early 2010s during the end of the Myspace era. But the genre's deep, dark electro-wave sound, and the occult imagery in its lyrics, fashion, and music videos have continued to draw fans in well past the genre's prime. 

Early witch house artists typically produced spooky tracks that sampled from '90s and '00s horror films and hip-hop records. They layered these samples with heavy bass riffs, lots of synth, and sometimes vocals. Visually and aesthetically, people in the community reflected this dark music by incorporating magic symbols, upside down crosses, and pentagrams into all black hip-hop clothing. 

Like many things created on the internet, witch house had a relatively short shelf life. The term itself appears to have come about in 2009. Travis Egedy (known as Pictureplane) used it in an interview to describe the music he and his friends were producing. 

"Mark our words, 2010 will be straight up witchy," Egedy wrote in Pitchfork. 

Travis Egedy in his warehouse/studio

Image: Denver Post via Getty Images

He wasn't wrong about 2010, but mainstream interest in witch house didn't last long. The genre tapered off in the early '10s when it was overshadowed by vaporwave, another internet-fueled genre of music.

"I think people are still looking and hoping for witch house bands that have gone away to find a way to come back," Adina Viarengo of White Ring said. "I feel like there's a really devoted base that wants more of this kind of stuff. There's a need for it right now."

The demand for this type of music is something that drives artists like JC Lobo of Ritualz to continue to producing tracks. He started his career on Myspace in late 2009 with just a computer, and to this day Lobo continues to make music that is influenced by this largely forgotten era of music. He released a Ritualz album titled Doom earlier this year.

"It's really different now because witch house isn't as visual anymore because everyone's been a part of the scene for a while," Lobo explained in a phone call. "But the music is different. It's definitely a lot more techno and ravey compared to its earlier hip-hop sound."

"I'm not really a part of the scene anymore," Lobo said. "But when I'm on tour, I play witch house songs and all of the kids from the community come out and listen along."

Lobo posing for the camera.

Image: Courtesy of JC Lobo / Taken by Francisco Mendez

"Witch house was innovative," Lobo said. "It was new and dark, which was really important because it had been a long time since that kind of music was appealing to a large audience."

What made witch house such a strange phenomenon was its purposeful obscurity. Witch house musicians hid. When I accidentally stumbled upon the genre after listening to a witch house remix of a Charli XCX song by BLVCK CEILING, I was happy to know there were a ton of artists and tracks out there — even if they were hiding their names behind band names made up of random symbols.

While BLVCK CEILING was my own personal introduction to the genre, other artists from the community have made their mark on the scene, some even as early as the Myspace era. A few notable artists from the community include GR†LLGR†LL (pronounced GrillGrill), oOoOO, and Salem.

Artist names featuring crosses and inscrutable symbols are typical. For someone outside of the scene, it's a challenge to find specific tracks or musicians. While Ritualz hid behind the logo "†‡†," White Ring had an all-white Myspace page that required the user to highlight the entire page to see text about new tracks and announcements.

"I always think of it as having a punk spirit where everything is always a 'fuck you,'" Kurkimilis said. "It's like I'm gonna release a song, but I'm gonna do it in this weird way."

Having an immortal punk spirit is obviously cool and all, but the people who helped cultivate it eventually moved onto other projects. While White Ring and Ritualz are the only major figures to release full albums in recent years, other notable artists in the community find interesting ways to stay relevant.

Image: Nigel Ryan / Courtesy of white ring

Take witch house rapper Gvcci Hvcci (pronounced Goo-chee Hoo-chee), who was a major figure back in 2011. As one of the very few prominent women producing witch house tracks, Gvcci amassed a cult following.

In 2012, a post on crvckhouse, a Tumblr page dedicated to promoting witch house artists, claimed that Gvcci Hvcci had passed away. Lobo, who was apparently the last person to collaborate with the rapper, was the first to speak about the news, and confirmed her "death."

"Shortly after our track came out, people kept asking me where she was," Lobo said. "I eventually just started to say 'she's dead' because I was friends with her producer who said she closed all of her accounts and was going to stop releasing tracks." 

Prior to her "death," Kurkimilis says he actually had a brief interaction with the mysterious figure in 2011 over the phone. Around this time, rumors began to circulate that the pictures Gvcci Hvcci had used to promote herself were fake. Her entire identity was in question. 

"I know for sure it's an actual girl," Kurkimilis claims. "She was not the girl in the photos, because a friend of hers showed me a real picture of her. I know she's a real person."

After seemingly catfishing everyone in the community, Gvcci Hvcci had made a name for herself. Her infamy would continue to grow after her supposed "death."

Just two short years later, to everyone's shock, Gvcci Hvcci released a track titled "Bullet in the Head." The witch house community went into a frenzy. The rapper, who was now revealed to be alive, took advantage of the cultural moment. As the lyrics go, Gvcci was officially "back from the dead."

Had Gvcci Hvcci really faked her own death for recognition? The answer is murky. Some community members aren't convinced that the Gvcci Hvcci who returned is the same artist from 2011. 

"I just never denied anything and I was playing along with the myth of Gvcci Hvcci," Lobo admitted. "The producer found a different girl, or unreleased tracks, I'm not sure which. I didn't really keep up with the story but it's funny how people are still speculating years later." 

These days Gvcci Hvcci is relatively silent. An unfinished track titled "ttryan" which was released in January of this year serves as her most recent published work on Soundcloud. When we approached her on Facebook for a statement, the anonymous rapper responded with: "Guess what? Chicken butt," and sent a link to her Go Fund Me page. 

Gvcci Hvcci continuing to troll in 2018

Image: Mashable / Xavier Piedra

On the page, Gvcci Hvcci is asking for $2,500 to help produce and release her work-in-progress track, "Issa night." In the past six months, Gvcci Hvcci has raised $130 from three people of her $2,500. As of September 2018, there have been no updates on production of the new song.

Song titles hiding behind symbols and artists with mysterious personas are what makes witch house unique — and what's kept the genre fresh. 

When musicians like Gvcci Hvcci fake their deaths, or when artists like White Ring return from a years-long hiatus, it helps revitalize the community. Like any dedicated fanbase, lovers of the niche genre get excited when they hear news about their favorite artists, good or bad.

Without witch house, we wouldn't have mainstream artists like Charli XCX, Chvrches, and Grimes, who've attributed parts of their style and sound to this genre of music.

"It’s hip-hop for goths," Charli said during an interview with Self-titled magazine in 2012. "I like the whole scene – the cult imagery, the upside down crosses. I love witch house."

Charli XCX during the early days of her career in 2013.

Image: Caitlin Mogridge / Getty Images

Despite its age, witch house still has a place within our culture. While the dark aesthetic and sound might not appeal to everyone, witch house continues to persist, especially on the internet. In fact, Lobo's a firm believer that witch house marks a major chapter in the history of internet culture and music.

"I think witch house has amazing value as being one of the first generations of music born from the internet," Lobo said. "Before then you didn't have any dark or ambient music, so it was a really good balance for internet music genres like chillwave and vaporwave that had mainstream appeal."

The sound itself has shifted a bit over the past ten years, and whether or not it's a positive change is up for debate. Shifting from its hip-hop-inspired sound, witch house has become more clubby and electronic than ever. Lobo attributes this change to the need for faster music that people can dance to.

"I wish it would go back a bit to the days of droning sounds and anonymous artists," Lobo said. "It seems like a lot of people are trying to make it about dancing, and I notice that's a big focus for producers. But the appeal at first was to listen to this weird and dark ambient noise."

But why should anyone listen to this music in 2018? "I think its good to have a balance in your life especially with music," Lobo explained. "Listening to different music will help you understand different people and communities, so it's important you give it a chance and try a bit of everything."

Image: Courtesy of Ritualz / Taken by Daniela Quant

Like any genre of music, witch house has cultivated a community of followers who are dedicated to their favorite artists. Specifically within the witch house Reddit community, the page stays somewhat active as new artists create and share new tracks, or when, for example, White Ring makes an unexpected return.

"Once a genre is created, it can never really go away," Viarengo said. "I know there are pockets of people all over the world who are into witch house that are going to continue experimenting with it."

Lobo agrees and believes that witch house's hip-hop and electronic roots will allow it to evolve alongside these genres.

"I don't think it will ever get stuck," Lobo said. "Hip-hop and electronic music has been changing over the past 30 years, and witch house's sound will continue to be influenced by those two styles of music. Audience-wise it might get stuck, but it can get bigger still, it just need some more time."

With White Ring and Ritualz at the recent forefront of the witch house movement, the community and genre are still in good hands. While I wait for more tracks to feed my goth fantasies, I'll be casting spells to Gate of Grief and Doom on repeat.

WATCH: We made that scene from 'The Shining' a lot less scary with bad foley

[artificialqueens]

tinder's a shit show (trixya) (1/?) - ornacia

(A/N: hey all. this little thing is the product of exam stress, boredom, and my inevitable relapse into full-on rpdr fanfiction addiction. i’ve never written anything for this fandom before so apologies if it’s not the best. i might continue it if the response is good but if not, it was a lot of fun either way!)

“Galentines Day,” Trixie repeated incredulously. She’d been sitting in the library for almost three hours and had relocated six times either out of boredom or because someone nearby was giving her evil-eyes for taking up desk-space she didn’t actually need. As of now she’d found herself a table at the back of the cafe with a patchy signal and a couple of suspicious looking stains on the seat.

“Yeah, it’s from that one episode of Parks and Recreation.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow, taking a long sip of strawberry milkshake.

“Remember? It’s the one where –”

“I remember,” she said, pushing her drink aside and adjusting the screen of her laptop in the hopes of seeing her friend a little better. “Are you gonna make me a mosaic out of crushed up bottles of my favourite diet soda?”

“No.”

“Am I getting a personalised 5,000 word essay on why I’m the most awesome friend you’ve ever had? A needlepoint cushion with my face on it?”

Kim fixed her with a look, and after a beat of silence Trixie gave in and pushed her milkshake to the side of the screen. “Okay, okay. What are we doing?”

“Having a sleepover. You, me, Naomi, and Max. They’re staying the night and we’re watching 10 Things I Hate About You and ordering a take-out.”

Trixie raised a brow. “Eating your feelings isn’t supposed to be a group activity.”

“But it can be,” Kim argued. “So are you in? You know, you kind of have to say ‘yes’ unless you want to lock yourself in your room all night while we throw the Galentine’s day party without you.”

“Will there be wine?”

Kim smiled triumphantly at the camera, holding up one finger and clumsily shuffling upwards and backwards out of her seat. She disappeared for all of thirty seconds before reappearing in the frame with several bottles clutched against her chest, none of which looked particularly stable. “Lots,” she confirmed, lifting her arms a little so as to give a better view.

“You got me,” Trixie said, shaking her head and grinning at her roommate. “Now go put those back before you cause an accident.”

—

She was two glasses deep into the bottle of Grenache Rosé when someone said the word ‘Tinder’. Her ass was numb from having been forcefully relocated to the arm of the couch by unanimous vote and her attention was only half on the T.V, the other half being reserved for the last few slices of pepperoni pizza.

“Yeah,” Naomi said, legs splayed out across the other girls’ laps and a wine glass dangling between her fingers. “I know someone who met their boyfriend on Tinder. Like, an actual boyfriend – not some guy who takes you to the cinema one time and tries to bundle you into the backseat of his jeep. ”

Max, ever the sensible one, considered this information with a small frown creasing her brow. “Really? Isn’t that a little… you know, dangerous?”

“Not if you meet them somewhere public,” Trixie pointed out sliding down from her perch and onto the floor that she could crawl towards the pizza boxes and re-load her plate.

“Second wind already?”

“Fuck you,” she said, jabbing a mozzarella stick in the offender’s direction and licking the salt from her fingertips. “It’s been at least twenty minutes.”

“Sure,” Kim snorted. “Seriously though, what’s the guy like?”

“Not that weird. She could do better, but like if she’s happy I’m not going to say anything.”

“Does he have Instagram?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Everyone has Instagram,” Trixie said. “It’s like Facebook. If you don’t have Instagram you’re probably not a real person.”

“Unless you’re forty years old, in which case you’ve probably got better things to do.”

“Yeah, right. Like bake a tuna casserole for the neighbours and spam inspirational minion memes on your fourteen-year-old daughter’s Facebook page.”

“Don’t come for my mother, Miss Mattel. You don’t know her like that.”

Trixie laughed and threw a ball of kitchen towel at the other girl’s face before scooting backwards to sit on the floor between the other girls legs. Max, to her credit, caught the hint immediately and picked a couple of blonde curls to start playing with.

“Why don’t you get it, Trixie?”

“Get what?” She half-turned her head to look up at Kim and Naomi on the sofa behind her.

“Tinder,” Naomi said, holding up her hands in mock-surrender in response to the flash of indignation that flashed across the blonde’s face. “Woah, hey, that wasn’t supposed to be shady. I just thought maybe you could do with getting some.”

“You are always complaining about how long it’s been since you got laid.” Kim chimed in.

As true as that was, her complaining was more for show than anything else. Trixie hadn’t ever been much of a dater, and the one time she’d been fingered at a house party in the eleventh grade was hardly memorable.

“You just said Tinder was full of creeps.”

“No,” Naomi said slowly. “Max said Tinder was full of creeps. Come on, it’ll be fun. We can toot or boot your potential hook-ups. It’s not like you’re actually gonna meet any of them in person.”

“Ooh,” Kim clapped her hands together lightly. “Sounds interesting.”

Trixie grimaced, shaking her head and pushing her phone protectively beneath her knees. “No, no way,” she said. “What if I run into someone from college or a neighbour or something?”

“Your neighbour is rather attractive,” Max mused, looking a little taken aback when three curious sets of eyes swivelled her way. “What? I’m allowed to find someone visually appealing. I don’t mean anything inappropriate by it.”

“Calm down, Maria,” Trixie snorted. “Nobody thinks you’re that kind of girl.”

“Nobody thinks you’re that kind of girl either.”

“So why am I being made to download it? Why not Max?”

“Because Max would never actually do it, and you’ve had way more to drink.”

Trixie made an affronted noise, placing her hand on her chest and and opening her mouth in a caricature of shock. For all her theatrics, she knew they weren’t wrong. All it took was ten more minutes of relentless pestering before she threw her hands in the air and gave into the pressure. It wasn’t as though she’d ever use it or talk to any of her potential matches. Besides that, a little ego boost never hurt anybody.

“Use that picture,” Naomi said, reaching forward to tap a perfectly manicured nail against the screen. “You’re giving beach-babe Barbie realness.”

“That’s so not a thing,” Trixie said, smacking her hand away. “And I can’t put that up, I’m in a Bikini!”

“What’s your point?”

She rolled her eyes, looking over her profile one last time before hitting ‘done’. It wasn’t as though she was trying to impress anybody. If a scantily clad photo with a margarita in her hand was what it took to keep her friends entertained then what was the harm?

“Set your preferences to ‘both’.”

“What? Why?” Trixie frowned.

“Because I want to see if the girls on Tinder are as weird as the guys,” Kim shrugged.

Apparently the answer was yes. There were a few cute guys here and there and a couple of girls that Trixie couldn’t help but linger on before passing, but the majority of people were pretty unsettling. There was a guy named Daryl with one too many innuendos in his bio and a selection of identical photos all taken from the exact same angle on his laptop. Then there was Jesus, Jesus in a nappy, and Jesus who’d dragged a random baby goat into his profile picture for the sake of looking ‘sensitive’.

“This guy just made a power-point on the pros and cons of swiping right,” she said, raising her eyebrows and turning the phone screen so everyone could see it better.

“Next.”

“I like her makeup,” Kim said, leaning in closer to examine the next potential match. “And her shoes are cute too.”

“Toot.”

They carried on like that well into the evening. When eventually it did get old, they resorted to watching an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras before calling it a night.

It wasn’t until the other girls had gone to bed and Trixie found herself sitting up alone on twitter that she opened it up again out of curiosity. The first profile didn’t disappoint. In fact, she found herself squinting to try and figure out exactly what it was she was looking at.

The girl in the photo was blonde and rail-thin with hollow cheeks that struck an odd contrast against the brightness of her eyes. There was a spot of red lipstick in her teeth and a slightly flushed and breathless look about her and, strangest of all, she was wearing a dress printed with screen-caps of Amanda Bynes in ‘What a Girl Wants’.

“What the…” she shifted her gaze to the bio section and snorted with laughter.

‘I’m the closeted High School make-out session that’s still got you sweating when grandma comes to visit, Katya.’

Curiosity piqued, Trixie flicked her way through the remaining photos. There was one of her hanging upside down from a goal-post with her underwear on full display and another of her photobombing a cute, ginger girl’s mirror selfie. She was grinning like an idiot in both of them and against all odds, Trixie found herself gravitating towards the green heart.

‘We probably won’t even match,’ she told herself, continuing on through the profiles out of sheer boredom. ‘And even if we did, it’s not like I’m not into girls.’

There had only been one openly gay student at her High School in Milwaukee. It wasn’t something anyone ever talked about, but she’d spied him getting roughed up behind that school canteen a couple of times and that was more than enough evidence for her to deduce that it wasn’t something you went around telling people.

And maybe it was naive of her.  She that it was different in places like California where people were open to new ideas and methods of self-expression, but she’d gotten more than enough flack for her sense of style over the years. Since moving away from home, Trixie had been able to start presenting herself the way she’d always wanted to; big hair, pink clothes, and a lot of makeup. That was enough. She didn’t need to embark on some journey of self-exploration or live out the ‘everyone experiments in college’ fantasy.

She didn’t.

Her train of thought was interrupted when a notification cropped up in the corner of her screen. Her heart stuttered a little in her chest a moment, but it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as she’d first hoped. It was a message from some guy they’d swiped right on a couple of hours earlier - not that she was disappointed or hoping for anything else.

She didn’t bother reading it before locking her phone and struggling up off the sofa to grab herself a glass of water and follow the other girls to bed.

—

(04.33AM) i hear you’re looking for a stud. well, I got the STD and all I need is u ;))

Trixie blinked, reaching to rub the sleep from her eyes with her free hand. She could hear chatter from the kitchen, a sure sign that everyone else had been awake for a little while already, and the smell of pancakes was just starting to waft in through her bedroom door.

“Who the hell,” she murmured, keying in her passcode and scrolling through her apps until she found the little fire icon.

Of course.

The message was from Katya. A second glance at her profile confirmed that she was every bit as gorgeous as Trixie remembered and just weird enough for the pick-up to be funny instead of creepy or uncomfortable.

(10.53AM) No offence but that really isn’t how to sell yourself.

(10.54AM) Also why were you still awake at 4AM?

It wasn’t as though she was committing to anything by writing back. At least, that was what she told herself. If Katya turned out to be some sort of insatiable horn-dog or a sixty-five year old man with a thirst for women way outside the socially acceptable dating pool, she could always delete the app or block her.

The thought had only just crossed her mind when her bedroom door flew open to reveal a fresh-faced Kim sporting frilly, turquoise apron and some sushi-print pyjamas. “We’re making pancakes,” She announced. “Nutella and strawberries or peanut butter and banana?”

“Nutella and strawberries. Do we have any whipped cream?”

“Yeah.”

“That too.” Trixie said, flinching when her phone buzzed in her hand. It was from Tinder. She’d been a little on the fence about whether she’d be receiving a response at all, let alone so quickly. What kind of person stayed up till just before dawn and managed to resurrect before lunch-time?

“Who’s that?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. No-one,” Trixie put her phone in her lap and played it off with a shrug. “I’ll be through in five, can you keep a couple warm for me?”

“Sure.”

She waited until Kim had left the room before re-launching the app to see what Katya had sent her. Vaguely, she wondered if Tinder notified the other person when she’d read their messages. That was something to figure out later.

(10.55AM) no, totally - the best way to sell yourself is to up the quality and put down the price :D

(10.55AM) Sounds like you’re talking from experience.

(10.55AM) i’m a wealth of wordly experience, mother.

(10.55AM) Mother?

(10.56AM) wrong number. it’s the russian supermodel you swiped right on last night ;DD

She rolled her eyes.

(10.56AM) Doesn’t ring a bell.

(10.56AM) :((

(10.56AM) how about a crazy flashing her granny-panties in the playpark?

(10.56AM) So this is my mother.

(10.56AM) ha ha

(10.57AM) for real though, you’re super cute!

(10.57AM) Thanks, you have a really pretty smile.

(10.57AM) twenty-one years of refined sugar and legal highs and i’ve never had a cavity

(10.57AM) Get out, I had braces for two and a half years!

(10.57AM) and didn’t put one of those pictures on your profile???

(10.57AM) I literally looked like Sharon Spitz.

(10.57AM) braceface!

(10.58AM) You got that reference?

(10.58AM) no, i googled it.

(10.58AM) why did the deer need braces?

(10.58AM) Oh no…

(10.58AM) he had buck teeth!

(10.58AM) That was awful.

(10.59AM) wanna hear another one?

(10.59AM) Hold on, let me… brace myself.

(10.59AM) ahhh!!!

(10.59AM) marry me. right here, right now

Trixie was fully aware of the fact that she was smiling like an idiot. She couldn’t help it. For someone she’d been speaking to for a little over five minutes, Katya was ridiculously charming and super easy to talk to.

(10.59AM) I usually don’t accept marriage proposals until after the second date.

(11.00AM) two dates for marriage?? who do you think u are

(11.00AM) A lady of class and sophistication.

(11.00AM) no way, me too

(11.00AM) I can tell.

(11.00AM) it’s an energy

(11.00AM) Oh, totally.

(11.00AM) cosmic, almost

(11.00AM) Cosmic?

(11.01AM) absolutely. the stars have aligned to tell you i’m one high-end, high-class piece

(11.01AM) That wasn’t what I was getting.

(11.01AM) you need to open your mind

(11.01AM) listen with your heart

(11.01AM) Paint with all the colours of the wind?

(11.01AM) yes!! thank you, pocahontas

“Trixie!”

"Coming! I’m coming,” she called, peeling the duvet covers off herself and feeling around the floor for her slippers.  

(11.02AM) I gotta go, breakfast is ready.

(11.02AM) aw :((

(11.02AM) ttyl?

(11.02AM) Sure.

(11.02AM) :D

Trixie huffed out a laugh, glancing at Katya’s smiling profile picture one last time before setting her phone face-down on the bed-side table and shuffling on through to the kitchen. Kim, Naomi and Max were all gathered around the counter in various states of wakefulness. Naomi looked as though she’d slept in her mascara, no surprise there, while Max had was sitting with a cup of tea clutched in both hands. All three of them turned when she entered.

“Someone looks cheerful,” Max commented, raising a brow. “What’s that about?”

"Oh, nothing.” Trixie said idly, swiping a plate from her cupboard and stacking it high with a smile still lingering on her lips. ”Nothing at all.”

[thejustinmarshall]

The 80s Cruise Omnibus: The Tubes

This is a part of our full coverage of the 2018 80s Cruise. Read more about the floating music festival here. 

The band that was the most hotly debated on board The 80s Cruise were no strangers to controversy. The Tubes emerged from the post-hippy art scene in San Francisco in the early 70s and spent much of their early years being threatened with jail for what some considered lewd behavior, so facing an audience with some perplexed faces was likely old hat.

Fee Waybill and Rick Anderson on The 80s Cruise

“Did you see the lead singer pull that bottle out of the crotch of his skin-tight silver pants, drink the liquid in it and put it back in his pants?” asked Shannon Price. She wasn’t alone in finding the band’s concert somewhat unsettling. Another audience member was overheard asking, “What the **** did I just watch?” as he left the theater. There were plenty of people confused by the band, but many appreciated the unusual performance.

“The Tubes should do a comedy act. They crack me up,” remarked John Clark of Dallas.

The band found a unique niche early in their career by putting on outrageous shows that straddled the line between “performance art” and “concert.” As lead singer, Fee Waybill, described it to Herald de Paris in 2016, “It was a circus every night, with topless dancers, one legged ballerinas, trapeze artists and women’s panties.” Merging music with dance, comedy and satire, they found willing audiences in New York and Los Angeles.

The band signed with A&M records and took their unique shows on the road, often courting controversy. A series of shows in the UK were canceled because there were fears they would be too risqué. In the U.S., they were sometimes asked to sign wavers guaranteeing there wouldn’t be any nudity onstage. What ended the years of outlandish gigs wasn’t the band bending to societal norms, it was the high price of art. Traveling around with scores of extra performers and elaborate sets was expensive and the band ended up losing money on every tour.

Fee Waybill and Roger Steen on The 80s Cruise

Besides losing money on the tours, they weren’t selling a lot of albums. They were dropped by A&M, but eventually signed with Capitol. The expensive stage shows disappeared, replaced with a new, radio friendly album. The Completion Backward Principle was released in 1981 and with it, mainstream success for the record and its two singles, “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” and “Talk to Ya Later.” The release of 1983’s, Outside Inside, gave the band its biggest taste of success when the video for “She’s a Beauty” helped catapult the song into the top 10. When the follow-up album, Love Bomb failed to build on the momentum of Outside Inside, the band was dropped, and Waybill eventually left for a time.

The Tubes have left the extravagant shows behind, but as the audience on board discovered, there was still a lot of weird in their toolbox. The songs they included in the 75 minute set revealed how unique the band has been in the rock lexicon. Songs like, “Telecide” and “TV is King” both celebrate and ridicule the television culture of the late 70s. Their version of a love song came in the form of the funky, “Tip of My Tongue” with Waybill impishly singing, “Never been too cunning/I’m no linguist/But I can tell you this/Ever since I left you I’ve been lost/I’m walking in a fog/We can lick this problem/We can work it out.”

Waybill had several costume changes including a straight jacket for “Mr. Hate,” but it was when he walked onstage wearing a carnival barker suit that most of the audience hopped to their feet to sing along to, “She’s a Beauty. They never had a chance to sit back down as the band played the somewhat oddly placed cover of The Beatles’, “I Saw Her Standing There” before finishing up with, “Talk to Ya Later.”

Yes, that’s a bottle in his pants, but he’s still happy to see you. “Quay Lewd” by LJ Moskowitz

The audience clearly enjoyed those last three, familiar songs, but the song they will remember most was played earlier in the set. As the rest of the band played, “Tubes World Tour,” Waybill left the stage and returned dressed as his alter ego, “Quay Lewd” to sing, “White Punks on Dope.” The character with its signature spandex and 12” heels was original conceived as an homage to The New York Dolls. If Price was shocked by Waybill pulling a bottle of booze out of his spandex pants and taking a slug, she likely would have been scandalized by the sizable dildo the singer usually pulls out of the costume. Which was probably the way The Tubes would have preferred it.

LJ Moskowitz is a photographer and writer based out of New Jersey specializing in concert, product and fine art photography. She is a member of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and Professional Photographers of America (PPA). You can find her at Shutterchick Photography, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

All photos appearing on this page are the property of LJ Moskowitz. They are protected by U.S. Copyright Laws and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of LJ Moskowitz. Copyright 2018 LJ Moskowitz. All Rights Reserved.

The post The 80s Cruise Omnibus: The Tubes appeared first on Concert Blogger.

from Explore http://concertblogger.com/2018/05/the-80s-cruise-omnibus-the-tubes/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[swissforextrading]

Propaganda from the Uncanny Valley

Art has always been an ideal vessel for propaganda: persuading with emotion can cut through the need for rational argument. With Facebook’s release of thousands of examples of propaganda created for social media in 2016, it’s becoming clear that artlessness is just as good. After Congressional hearings in the United States, Facebook has announced an “Action Plan Against Foreign Interference” that would double its security team in 2018, and is planning to release a tool for users to check if they’ve clicked on any of this propaganda in 2016. Two conservative activists on Twitter were recently revealed to be bots; that’s two out of the company’s estimated 36,746 Russian-backed bot accounts, though a private investigation found 150,000 such bots operated to influence the Brexit campaign. Russia denies any involvement. Third-party tools, such as botcheck.me, have been developed to evaluate Twitter account histories for bot-like patterns. Today’s propaganda artists are on the frontlines of the “creative” algorithm: the emerging trend of data channeled into “inspiration” for content and channeled back into creative products. In line with our past events examining cyberthreats and digital humanitarianism, we’re looking at how creative algorithms work (or fail) and how that is influencing the next wave of propaganda. What happens when bots talk — and people listen? Batman Elsa Birthday Babies Artist and researcher James Bridle recently took a critical look at YouTube videos crafted for children. The children’s market is a ripe target for this kind of content: toddlers love repetition, parents love the endless stream of (unwatched) content, and producers love their low costs and production values. Bridle writes that the algorithms aren’t just curating this content. They are surfacing the most powerful combinations of keywords, and using them to dictate what content is produced for the site. YouTube selects videos matching similar keywords for its “up next” queue, which are played automatically when one video ends. Create a video that matches these keywords, and you assure that your video will join the infinite stream of content shown to a child searching for Elmo or Frozen videos. There is no shortage of cheap and quickly created content with word-salad titles like “Batman Finger Family Song?—?Superheroes and Villains! Batman, Joker, Riddler, Catwoman.” The audience for that title isn’t a child, or parents. The audience isn’t human at all: the audience is the YouTube algorithm. Once the keywords are crafted for that algorithm, the content is second nature. Throw those characters together and back it with the “family finger song.” The keywords dictate the content, not to benefit any child, but to ensure that the algorithm plays that video in automated queues of videos related to any of those title terms. Bridle points out that something is amiss in these videos. They certainly allow less-than-scrupulous actors to inject weird content into a child’s stream. One nightmarish example shows Spiderman, the Hulk, and Elsa all being bashed in the head by the Joker and other villains, who then bury these favorite children’s characters alive in quicksand. That’s blatantly outrageous content created by anonymous bad actors. But even in harmless videos, there’s something weird about inverting the relationship between keywords and content. Keywords are a categorization of what content contains. By knowing the types of content people are looking for, breaking those words apart from any context and re-assembling them, you create something like a formula to guarantee search results or, at least, high placement in auto-generated content streams. The Dark Art of SEO This is what used to be considered the dark arts of “SEO” — Search Engine Optimization. It’s a tool used for writing blog spam that could show up in search results. The impact of blogspam was somewhat limited to 500-word texts redirecting you to purchase products. Today, we’re seeing SEO create epic, 30-minute-long animated videos that don’t explicitly ask you for money, but generate revenue anyway. The content of these videos is secondary. Kids watch whatever is dictated by the most valuable keywords. Humans create this content quickly in response, resulting in something with no educational value, reflecting a surrealist mash-up of arbitrary search terms: the digital storytelling equivalent of empty calories. Machine learning processes take human inputs, strip them into basic units, and then reassemble them into infinite variations. It’s this blend of human and alien processes that make “AI consciousness” such a weird concept. But it’s a very specific kind of weird: uncanniness. Rethinking the Uncanny For an example of uncanniness, there may be no easier example to understand than the Dadabots‘ album, “Deep the Beatles!” The album is the result of a machine learning computer “listening” (or scanning sound data) to Beatles records and producing something that is, simultaneously, very much the Beatles and very much not the Beatles.  Ernst Jentsch first defined a certain emotion, “uncanniness,” in 1906: “In telling a story, one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty [of] whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton, and to do it in such a way that his attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately.” It’s an oddly prescient line of thinking that seems to describe the entire internet experience as of 2016. The uncanny has moved from literature into the real (albeit virtual) world, spreading a residue of low-grade, unsettling surrealism into our everyday lives. Looking at a Twitter account with 38,800 followers posting nothing but unsourced political memes in 2015, we might have asked how this person had so much time on their hands. Today, we have to ask if they’re actually human. In its congressional hearings, Facebook shared 3,000 images it claims originated from a shadowy organization in St. Petersburg, Russia, intended to influence American voters. What we see in these images is the surface-skimming of keywords, created from real political debates, boiled down to their most toxic and potent forms. Facebook is transcribing your online actions and reducing them into easily-digestible traits. It can tell if you’re neurotic, a reader, a beach-lover, extroverted. It can tell if you’re gay or straight, married, religious, or have children. It can tell if you’re worried about immigrants, guns, or unemployment. These categories can then be skimmed and recycled into content. Just like a four-year-old who wants to watch an Elsa video, advertisers can tell if you want to see anti-immigrant content, and then deliver it. The Meme War Two anonymous researchers are creating an online archive of these political images. They include groups across the spectrum, from “Army of Jesus” to gay groups, “Woke Blacks,” “Missouri News,” “Feminist Tag.” They target pro- and anti-immigrant sentiment. If there was a set of keywords that could be targeted with divisive political rhetoric, there was a group created to appeal to them. From there, real people, selected by the algorithms, boosted and amplified messages that were essentially dictated by those same algorithms. The social media propaganda images aren’t sophisticated. They’re full of spelling errors, extremist language and imagery. One had Satan suggesting that Hillary Clinton would win the election if he beat Jesus in an arm-wrestling contest. The viewer was encouraged to “like” the post to “help Jesus win.” That content was created specifically for people whose personalities showed a strong affinity to the Bible, Jesus, God, Christianity, and Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly. The ads can also create associations that rely on several layers of deception. A few targeted Facebook accounts of people with clear anti-immigrant bias and presented advertisements from a fake pro-Muslim group. The ads included an image of Hillary Clinton hugging a woman in a burka with the message “Support Hillary to Save American Muslims.” The idea is that this would be shown to Islamophobic voters, who would share it out of a sense of outrage. When Propaganda goes viral Sharing is an impulse built into all social media, and it’s the real mechanism being “hacked” in contemporary propaganda. We share things we relate and respond to, because they reflect who we are, how we want to be seen, and who we want to connect with. After Freud, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan took on the study of the uncanny. For Lacan, the uncanny reflects a conflicted appeal to our ideas of ourselves. The images and messages reveal a sense of our identities being reduced, partitioned, and invaded. Something uncanny emerges in this process. These are strange objects pretending to be familiar.   Looking at these archives of propaganda images is unsettling because it reveals parts of us we know — the political memes, ideas, and philosophies we believe in — and so they belong to us. But they also push the boundaries of those beliefs, including our ideas of what other people believe about us. It’s an environment that contributed to an especially toxic online atmosphere in 2016. What’s next? Not all creative algorithm content is created equal. In 2013, Netflix analyzed extensive tags it had created for every piece of its content to see what worked for most of its subscribers. From that data, they were able to discern a “Venn diagram” for a successful streaming series, which they agreed to produce, sight unseen. That show was “House of Cards.” But that wasn’t just the product of blind faith in data. Instead, it pointed to a new kind of intelligence, as described by Tim Wu in his New Yorker piece about the show: “It is a form of curation … whose aim is guessing not simply what will attract viewers, but what will attract fans—people who will get excited enough to spread the word. Data may help, but what may matter more is a sense of what appeals to the hearts of obsessive people, and who can deliver that.” The similarities between the art of crafting algorithms into fan-favorite entertainment and crafting successful online propaganda campaigns? You might say it’s uncanny. --- swissnex San Francisco is exploring a number of topics around AI and ethics in 2018. Stay tuned with our event newsletter to stay up to date. https://nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/propaganda-from-the-uncanny-valley/ (Source of the original content)

[miamibeerscene]

Who Owns Maui Brewing? Media Misprint Concerns Owner Garrett Marrero

Maui Brewing’s owner Garrett Marrero. (Credit: Maui Brewing)

March 8, 2017

Who owns Maui Brewing? The answer is Garrett Marrero, the same guy who has always owned the small and independent craft brewery.

But Marrero is concerned readers of a regional beer industry newspaper might think otherwise after seeing an incorrect graphic of beer ownership in the most recent publication. And Marrero wants to be clear: Maui Brewing Company is, and always has been, a small and independent craft brewery.

(MORE: 7 Offbeat Places for People Who Like Craft Beer)

Fake News and Alternative Facts

In a climate where the words “alternative facts” and “fake news” are lobbed around more than “please” and “thank you,” Garrett Marrero and Maui Brewing Company find themselves on the troubling end of an unintentional misprint.

Marrero founded Maui Brewing in 2005. (Credit: Maui Brewing)

Marrero was wrapping up a visit to Cincinnati for a festival in February when he started to get texts from friends who were asking if he had sold Maui. He didn’t quite understand where people were getting that idea. As a staunch supporter of independent brewing, he hadn’t sold. He’s an outspoken advocate for craft brewers, and his voice earned him a seat on the Brewers Association Board of Directors — the same board that sets the definition for what it means to be a craft brewer. That definition hinges on three cornerstones: small, traditional and independent (less than 25 percent owned or controlled by an alcoholic industry member that is not itself a craft brewer).

But when Jolly Pumpkin brewmaster Ron Jeffries sent him a photo of a graphic printed in the February/March 2017 issue of Great Lakes Brewing News, he was stunned.

Included in the publication’s cover story, “Mergers, Makeovers and Monster Breweries,” was a graphic — a family tree of sorts — that illustrated which companies own which beer brands. Maui Brewing was, inaccurately, listed as owned by Constellation Brands.

“It made my gut sink,” he tells CraftBeer.com. “Now, no matter how many retractions are printed, no matter what we do, there will always be people out there who don’t get wind of the retraction but remember that graphic, and start telling people that our brand is not independent and that we’re part of Constellation.”

(MORE: 9 Weird Brewery Names and the Stories Behind Them)

How a Mistake Winds Up In Print

Marrero is adamant about the distinction between a craft brewer as defined by the BA versus breweries that are acquired and owned by multinational conglomerates like AB-InBev and Miller Coors.

“When you’re an independent brewer, your interests are very different from what they are as what we would call a ‘captive brand,’” he explains. “Aside from the beverages we make, the companies at their cores are very different.”

Articles about beer ownership, like the Great Lakes Brewing News cover story, lend transparency for people who want to know who makes their beer — and people do care. In a 2016 Nielsen survey, 63 percent of craft beer lovers acknowledged that when purchasing beer in a bar or restaurant, knowing that the beer came from a small and independent brewer did carry weight in their purchase.

Marrero knows that people are invested in who makes their beer. After seeing the misprinted graphic he contacted Jamie Magee, the designer of the editorial system at Brewing News. Magee tells CraftBeer.com when he heard from Marrero, he was “mortified.”

“We regret the mistake.” Jamie Magee, Brewing News

“I immediately reached out to our production staff and the writer to figure out what had happened,” Magee says. He tracked the mistake down to a snippet from a San Diego column ending up in the wrong place, and then a graphic artist creating a chart based off the misplaced information.

“We regret the mistake,” he tells us.

Brewing News immediately corrected the chart featured in its Great Lakes Brewing News online edition. Magee says they plan to print a correction in the April/May 2017 edition.

“I also intend to publish a mea culpa along with the corrected chart to our Facebook page,” Magee says.

(MORE: Making the Three-Tier System in Beer Easy to Understand)

Who Owns Maui Brewing? Marrero’s Message

Find It: 51 Great American Beer Bars, as chosen by our readers.

Marrero says he understands mistakes happen, but the thought that the misprinted graphic will be floating around in bars and breweries across the region until the new issue comes out leaves Marrero very unsettled.

“It could be sitting there at the bar, you’re having a drink and reading the paper, and then seeing Maui is controlled by Constellation — and then you decide you don’t want to drink it because it’s not a craft brewer — even though the information is obviously totally wrong — and might not hear our message.”

Maui’s message, which Marrero says he wants to “yell from the rooftops,” is this:

“We haven’t changed. We are very much the same company we started out to be,” he tells CraftBeer.com. “We’re in constant pursuit of making better beer and more of it. Spreading the message of small and independent and local craft brewing is very important.”

Jess Baker

Jess Baker is a 15-year media vet whose credits include tv producing, digital storytelling and overall social media magic-making. Enamored by the personalities, dedication and entrepreneurial spirit of America’s small and independent brewers, she brings their stories to life at CraftBeer.com. She’s a runner, an aunt, a big fan of beercations and also a die-hard Springsteen fan. Read more by this author

The post Who Owns Maui Brewing? Media Misprint Concerns Owner Garrett Marrero appeared first on Miami Beer Scene.

from Who Owns Maui Brewing? Media Misprint Concerns Owner Garrett Marrero

[viralhottopics]

Good luck getting out of your Facebook bubble now

Facebook has been criticized for the "filter bubble" effect; it's unclear if Mark Zuckerberg knows how to fix the problem.

Image: Christopher mineses/Mashable

Mark Zuckerberg used nearly 6,000 words to describe the future of Facebook Thursday, but you could sum it up in two: global domination.

Sure, Facebook’s CEO appears more “woke” than ever. He meditates on substantive issues like inclusivity, the eradication of disease, responsible artificial intelligence and the future of media.

And yet. In the simplest terms, his manifesto is about how the social network will continue to be a relevant online product as more of the world becomes connected. It explores how Facebook can become a key part of global “infrastructure,” to borrow a word Zuckerberg uses literally 24 times, that will make it an indispensable part of daily life for people across the planet.

SEE ALSO: Zuckerberg removed a line about monitoring private messages from his Facebook manifesto

Let’s be very clear about one thing: Facebook is not medicine. It is not a job that puts money in your pocket or a roof over your head. Nor is it the phone that connects you to your mom several states away, or the plane that takes you to her. It is an online platform where posts from estranged friends and family members are interrupted every so often by ads for “3 free soups”:

We’ll take the Trump takes with some delicious soup, please.

Image: Facebook

Facebook exists to grow and to make money. It treats expansion as a merit unto itself, as if there is some inherent quality to people being on Facebook that betters society.

Consider how Zuckerberg grapples in his manifesto with the idea of disturbing content.

“The guiding principles are that the Community Standards should reflect the cultural norms of our community, that each person should see as little objectionable content as possible, and each person should be able to share what they want while being told they cannot share something as little as possible,” he writes.

It’s the exact type of unprincipled thinking that has ruined Facebook in the past.

There’s a leap therethat someone seeing “objectionable content” is in effect a “bad” thing that should be avoided at all costs. You might think Zuckerberg is referring to extremely disturbing content, like child pornography or videos of suicide, content that no one would argue should be on Facebook but he is not. Rather, it calls to mind a report from November suggesting Facebook would be open to news censorship to break into the Chinese marketplace.

“Even within a given culture, we have different opinions on what we want to see and what is objectionable,” he writes. “I may be okay with more politically charged speech but not want to see anything sexually suggestive, while you may be okay with nudity but not want to see offensive speech.”

Zuckerberg doesn’t grapple in the manifesto with the idea that things that are disturbing could be important to see, perhaps because of the fact that they’re “objectionable.”

Furthermore, his idea about solving this “problem” should raise eyebrows. Emphasis ours:

The approach is to combine creating a large-scale democratic process to determine standards with AI to help enforce them.

The idea is to give everyone in the community options for how they would like to set the content policy for themselves. Where is your line on nudity? On violence? On graphic content? On profanity? What you decide will be your personal settings. We will periodically ask you these questions to increase participation and so you don’t need to dig around to find them. For those who don’t make a decision, the default will be whatever the majority of people in your region selected, like a referendum. Of course you will always be free to update your personal settings anytime.

Let’s put this another way: In Zuckerberg’s idealized, and likely upcoming, version of Facebook, the default option for what is “appropriate” in your News Feed will be determined by groupthink that is specific to your area. The manifesto isn’t overly specific, of course: Regions could be a town, city, country, continent or national park for all we know. The devil will be in the details of how this is rolled out.

But you can see the trouble already: Even as Zuckerberg concedes in his note that Facebook has a “filter bubble” problem, he outlines a system that delivers content according to a moral standard set by a majority of people. Godspeed if you find yourself in a minority of people interested in “politically charged speech” about abortion in Forsyth County, Georgia. Check those News Feed settings, folks!

This definitely isn’t going to pop anyone’s Facebook bubble.

It’s the exact type of unprincipled thinking that has ruined Facebook in the past. Rather than take a meaningful stance in favor of the free spread of information, Zuckerberg, as ever before, walks a middle course that serves Facebook’s aimsto be a happy place for all people, thus ensuring its user base can grow without provoking the ire of tyrants or censors. Individuals are not served by this thinking; they’re limited by it, because by default, they won’t engage with news or content that unsettles.

And we get it: Facebook is a business, it can do whatever it wants, and of course its major incentive is to grow and be all things to all people. The concern comes when Zuckerberg intertwines these motives with something ideological, because Facebook has frequently been a threatening force in the world.

SEE ALSO: 2016: The year Facebook became the bad guy

Remember when it allowed hoaxes and propaganda to spread uninhibited in the lead-up to the election of Donald Trump? When the company tried and failed to become a dominant internet service provider in India? When it removed a line from this very manifesto suggesting it could use AI to monitor private communications and profile people? Or when it allowed advertisers to discriminate on the basis of race?

And how does Zuckerberg presume to know which approach will work best for everyone on this planet when 71 percent of his company’s senior leadership is white and 73 percent male?

read this passage a few times. this is an enormous weird claim about how.. people.. think? become themselves? the whole letter is like this! http://pic.twitter.com/vq7ml61eOg

John Herrman (@jwherrman) February 17, 2017

His solution is to steer clear of politics himself and and design technology solutions that make the hard choices for his company. Yet again Zuckerberg is deluding himself by asserting that refusing to fully own a position means he isn’t taking one.

“In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us,” the CEO writes.

Or, as he put it a bit more specifically to Recode‘s Kara Swisher: “Our approach is to try to get community to do it and I would rather that it come from community rather than us”

That’s nice in a sensethe manifesto also includes a rather heart-swelling passage about Zuckerberg wanting Facebook to better empower administrators of the network’s groups, thereby creating “meaningful” interactions even outside of cyberspacebut this is just a remix of the same old song.

Just as Facebook has refused to take responsibility as a media company when things go wrong with the editorial content it serves, Facebook will be able to shrug it off when its “social infrastructure” is used for prejudice or violence. Don’t forget that this is the same company that, as recently as October, couldn’t stop its new “Marketplace” feature from being overrun with illegal weapons, drugs and wildlife.

All this to say: It’s nice that one of the most important companies on this entire planet has a CEO who’s apparently done a little bit of soul-searching as the world cascades into hellfire, but Facebook has failed to earn our trust as consumers of its product. The problem is that it doesn’t need it. Facebook will continue to grow and morph and harvest our data, and so many of us are a little too over-invested in the social network to log off or demand something better.

There’s no question that Facebook has already changed the world, perhaps irrevocably. It’s the product that conditioned us to share photographs, videos and “status updates” from our personal lives online without hesitation. It has used the mass data created by its 1.86 billion users for astounding projects. The ability for A.I. to recognize and describe elements of photographs to the blind, is a striking example, but Facebook’s automated “Trending” news feature, which has been tweaked to better understand how we all consume media, is also substantial.

We’ll no doubt continue to see amazing things as Facebook and its technology mature. But don’t be shocked if (when) Zuckerberg’s 6,000-word idealism coalesces into something a bit less pretty.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2lTz3l9

from Good luck getting out of your Facebook bubble now

[davidpires578]

My Journey As A Creative Designer - Woodworking and Beyond #1818: Unfinished Business

I had a pretty productive day yesterday. My goal was to get the 15+ orders that I had cut out all packed and shipped by the pickup time at our local post office and I was able to accomplish that. It may not seem like a lot to some of you, but it takes a great deal of time. Since most of the shipments are international, I have to fill out customs forms for each package and make sure everything is right. I was happy that my partner Keith decided to give a hand. It made a huge difference when two of us were working compared to doing it all on my own. I really appreciated it.  I spent the rest of the day (once again) reorganizing things and catching up on emails and phone calls. This "business side" of the business is something that a lot of people don't see or understand and sometimes it can take much of the day. I only mention it because we normally don't hear about that aspect of the business from other designers. It is that quiet part of the job that mostly goes unnoticed but at times takes a huge bite out of our day.  When I was caught up on that, I had to go to the shop to complete a couple of small orders. There were a few things that came in over the weekend that I hadn't had enough stock to fill and I wanted to get those out as quickly as possible. I will be sending them out today and can officially say that I am "caught up" at this point, with some stock left for many of my items. It was time to take a breath and look at which direction to head.  I had intended on doing some painting in the evening, but by the time I cleaned up and had supper, I was just too tired. Again I want to blame this cold for that. Although I am better, the recovery is still a bit of a process. I opted for the 'early to bed, early to rise' school of thought and shut down for the night.  I am happy that I did because this morning I feel even better than yesterday. I am not the most patient person in the world when it comes to myself. It is odd because I am patient with other things beyond reason. Maybe that is from hanging around cats most of my life. I have no trouble in allowing things the time they need to fully develop and play out as they should. Except when it comes to my own self-imposed standards. I have this little voice in my head telling me that if I don't try my best every single day, I will have no one to blame if I fail except myself. I don't quite know where that voice comes from. Over the years, I have tampered it down quite a bit and have allowed myself some room to be human and to falter from time to time. But it is one of those weird, double-edged blades that pokes at my heart and mind. There are times when it has actually helped me. The extra push that my sub-conscious thoughts impose on me can be helpful in achieving my goals. But there are also times when those thoughts nag at me to reach some impossible standards that (once again) I set for myself that any mere mortal would fail to achieve. That is when it can be most destructive. The trick is to figure out which is which and act accordingly. Am I setting impossible standards for myself, or am I just setting goals that are attainable and motivating?  It is at times difficult to figure.  I think we all go through this cat and mouse game with ourselves. Some of us are more conscious of it than others. I think those of us who are aware of this train of thought are also more aware of it in those around us. We see those struggling as either 'problem solvers' or unsettled, as they switch from one thing to another without really completing anything. I think though that most of us fall somewhere in the middle.  (Wow! What was in my coffee this morning?!?) ;)   On to the point of this post . . . Unfinished Business. While I (like many of you) have some things that I start and don't finish, I have one large project that NEEDS to be done. It is my "12 Days of Christmas Ornament" project that I have been working on for the past year. My goal for the year was simple – One "Day" ornament a month for a year. By December I would have all 12 done and a beautiful keepsake, heirloom quality set. Sounds pretty simple, right?  But that demon inside of me that I spoke of earlier convinced me to make not two or three sets, but SIX. I had five very close family members and friends that would be recipients of this beautiful set and give them the home they deserved. Oh – I could have picked ten people to give them to. Or twenty even. There are so many people in my life that I appreciate, I wouldn't know where to start. But six seemed like a reasonable number and not really too far out of reach for me to do. So six it was.  I went ahead and set up a Facebook group called "12 Days of Christmas by Lynne Andrews - We are Making Them!" and I met many wonderful painters who wanted to join in my adventure. There were others who were making multiple sets and some were making just one, and the painters in the group have been wonderfully supportive.  It was one of the best decisions that I have made.    I did well with keeping up month for month, but then something unexpected happened – we moved, and I lost my footing. I fell behind the self-imposed month for month deadline as moving to a new home took up a tremendous amount of time. The home had to come first for a while, then the business and then this project. Life is just like that. Our priorities change day to day and those of us who succeed need to allow for that and be flexible. So I was kind to myself and let myself off the hook. After all – the theme of the page was that we would be there for the duration and there was 'no time frame' that we had to follow. There was no shame in having family or "life" get in the way. We would be there when whenever the members were ready to proceed.  So I swallowed that pill for myself and sometime in November finished up "Day 9".  I felt I could possibly squeak by and get them done by Christmas.  And then December hit and all that entailed. And things came to a grinding halt on this project.  So now I need to be my own example and take my own advice. I tell everyone that there is "no shame" in falling behind. I need to believe that for myself. We aren't transporting kidneys here, we are painting. Certainly those worthy of receiving this beautiful set understands the turmoil of the past several weeks and understand the delay. Otherwise, they would not be on the "A-list" to receive these ornaments in the first place.  With that said, I am moving forward. As the 'fearless leader' of the group, I take no shame in my tardiness in completing my six sets. I should only feel shame if I abandon the project altogether and not follow through with what I started. But for me, that isn't an option.   So I present to you my "Day 10" ornaments:

Ten Lords-a-Leaping.  Here is the back of the ornament:

The beautiful Opal Dust by JoSonja gives each piece a magical shine, as do the tiny crystal rhinestones in the crown:

And both the front and the back together:

Times six sets . . . 

And then there were TEN!

Part of the reason that coming back to this project was because I remember what I was doing when each "Day" was painted. In each and every of those instances, my sweet kitty Pancakes was 'involved' in some way. Days 11 and 12 will be 'different' in that he won't be here with me.  I know it is a silly thing, but it is things like this that creep into my head sometimes. So getting over this hump and moving on will be yet another step in healing. Little by little. . .  Thank you all for being cheerleaders and indulging me on these. We are still getting new people that want to join our Facebook group, and I will be there for the duration. As will my counterparts Lynne Andrews, Vera Souther and Lynn Barbardora. We will always be there to cheer you all to the finish.  On to Day 11 . . .   Happy Thursday!  (PS – you can get the book to paint these beautiful ornaments on Lynne's website Here: Christmas Blessings  We would love to have you paint with us!)

[thesinglesjukebox]

JON BELLION - ALL TIME LOW [2.75] Not even this year's low, but there could always be a follow-up single...

Mo Kim: "You know what would be great?" asked a Capitol Records executive, as a table of interns shook their heads in horrified silence. "Adam Young on a twenty one pilots track." [1]

Katie Gill: One of my favorite vines is the girl forgetting that her keyboard is in sound effect mode. Now, go back and listen to that awful noise that literally sounds like someone vomiting that starts off the beginning of the "low low low low" chorus. With all that in mind, I'm kind of worried that Bellion took that vine as inspiration. [1]

Katherine St Asaph: You'd think by now it would be standard, in the launching-a-popstar rulebook, not to commission any songs whose titles own themselves. [0]

Iain Mew: It turns out that if Owl City had ditched the cloying innocence thing and swapped out hugs from fireflies in favour of singing about obsession and masturbation, it wouldn't have helped. [2]

Alfred Soto: A guy who gets off on the aftertaste of someone's lips would treat an organ like Drake does women. [2]

Will Adams: Your girl broke up with you so now you have to masturbate alone and all her friends are ignoring you? Damn, bro, shit's tough. [2]

Megan Harrington: Bellion has a Posnerian underdog appeal, but there's no justifying that unsettling-verging-on-body-horror phlegmatic sample that coughs itself up and spits a loogie on the pretty enough melody. [4]

Scott Mildenhall: Better than his namesake Man Utd failure David? It's a low bar. Better than The Wanted? Not a chance. There are a lot of odd choices in "All Time Low" that seem to be intended to suggest that it is habitually quirky. Sure, this song has gaps that go on for far longer than could be considered "glitchy"; it's no big deal guys! If it ends up doing things like exposing muddled Outkast references then so be it. It's just a shame that, the last minute of getting into its stride aside, nothing here is as entertainingly weird as the lyric "or I'm late for work, a vital presentation". [4]

Josh Winters: Like a lengthy, oversharing Facebook status update from that one asshole from high school you haven't seen in years, this is worth putting out of sight (or hearing, in this case) and cutting any communication from the source altogether. [2]

Will Rivitz: I've been a staunch defender of twenty one pilots' artistic legitimacy for a good long while now, especially after a year which saw their staggering mainstream success and oodles of clueless quasi-thinkpieces from an increasingly insular music-crit literati who seem shocked that not everyone who listens to music is older than 25. Essentially, they act as a sort of Fisher-Price My First Misanthropy™ for mildly disaffected tweens, teens, and young adults, but for those people this is the first time they've heard anybody adequately articulate their stresses and fears and awkwardness and isolation in musical form. I understand what this means to them, since I had the exact same experience with (don't laugh) Linkin Park when I was fourteen: this shit is bombastic, vague, and a little corny, but it's got the perfect timbre and tone to resonate with scores of young folks who need the dreariness, terror, and ultimately hope that Tyler Joseph provides. Jon Bellion is, on the surface, aiming for the same aesthetic -- sad music with goofy electronic flourishes and a rock groove -- but his motions towards this style are at best an approximation. "All Time Low" is melancholy, but its melancholy is borne of comparatively trivial circumstances (post-relationship blues) compared to the all-encompassing, rotted-core tragedy of a twenty one pilots song. Tyler Joseph resonates because his perceived failures - feeling like an outcast, depression, fear of growing older - lie deep within him and are largely unchangeable; by contrast, a line like "I've been trying to fix my pride but that shit's broken" implies that the pride existed once, that this "all time low" is temporary when all is said and done. Basically, what I'm getting at is that "All Time Low" is a cheap knockoff of what makes twenty one pilots so powerful, less "Ecce Homo" and more its Monkey Jesus restoration. At its core, it is vanilla. It is a thoroughly unexciting pop song with pleasant production and mopey lyrics. When its chief point of comparison is a band who have taken the world by storm by being definitively Not OK, a Just OK song like this is nothing short of blasphemy. [2]

Joshua Copperman: It takes a lot of courage and confidence to reference "Captain Jack" (at least it's 70s Billy Joel) and "The Boxer" (at least he's not melodramatically covering "The Sound of Silence") within 30 seconds of one another, then marrying that to a hyper-modern drop with just enough punch to be emotionally resonant. In fact, Jon Bellion and co's production sounds almost self-satisfied, as if they knew that the "low-low-low" hook would fall into the shouldnt-work-but-does category, and they knew how fake-clever they were being with the "low" hook abruptly rising to a higher note, but did it anyway. Again, it mostly does work, aside from those cringey references, so they damn well should be self-satisfied. Respect! [6]

Josh Langhoff: Jon Bellion is a dork but I'm here to defend him, because if music critics hated people for being dorks, we'd just go around hating ourselves all the time. (Oh wait.) On first hearing I dismissed Bellion's album as Owl City rap. He called said album The Human Condition, btw, which is really making it hard for me to defend him because A Report on the Banality of Evil would have been so much cooler. But then the Top 40 DJ recommended it, claiming "Every song is good!", which forced me to reconsider; after all, when was the last time you heard a Top 40 DJ acknowledge an album's existence, let alone its quality? So, fine, now I think Bellion makes fun. rap with the Owl City kid's diction. "All Time Low" is clearly the standout song, no matter that Bellion sings about masturbation and André 3000 like he just discovered them and wants three stacks of pancakes for his trouble. The song stands out! Several times it tapers into silence -- which, if you've listened to Top 40 radio lately, you'll agree is an especially welcome trait. Plus, whenever Bellion sings the word "low," he doesn't make it go LOW like Garth Brooks; no, he goes HIGH. Thus concludes my thesis: Jon Bellion is essentially Michelle Obama. Who the fuck doesn't love Michelle Obama? [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[noiselessbuck]

@howldean